AMERICAN  IDEALS 
CHARACTER^ 

HAMILTON  WRIGHT  MABIE 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY   OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 
CHARACTER  AND  LIFE 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK   •   BOSTON  •    CHICAGO   •    DALLAS 
ATLANTA  •   SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON   •   BOMBAY   •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 
CHARACTER  AND  LIFE 


BY 
HAMILTON  WRIGHT  MABIE 


gorfc 
THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1913 

All  rights  reserved 


LLBKAKV 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

DAVIS 


COPYRIGHT,  1913, 
BY  THE  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY  COMPANY. 

COPYRIGHT,  1918, 
BY   THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  October,  1913. 


NortoootJ 

J.  8.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 

IN  the  Preface  to  his  illuminating  volume 
"The  Japanese  Nation:  Its  Land  and  Its 
People,"  Dr.  Inazo  Nitobe  explains  concisely 
the  circumstances  which  led  to  its  publica 
tion:  "  The  idea  of  sending  public  men  of  note 
unofficially  from  this  country  to  Japan  and 
from  Japan  to  the  United  States,  owes  its 
inception  to  Mr.  Hamilton  Holt  of  New  York 
City.  When  his  plan  had  been  developed  to 
a  certain  degree  of  feasibility,  the  task  of  car 
rying  it  into  effect  was  accepted  by  President 
Nicholas  Murray  Butler  of  Columbia  Uni 
versity,  in  whose  hands  the  idea  took  the 
more  practical,  if  the  less  ambitious,  form  of 
an  exchange  professorship,  and  he  interested 
certain  typical  universities  to  join  in  putting 
it  into  effect.  After  the  enterprise  was  fairly 
launched,  the  responsibility  for  its  continu 
ance  was  passed  on  to,  and  made  a  part  of,  the 
work  of  the  Carnegie  Peace  Endowment." 


PREFACE 

It  may  be  added  that  one  form  of  the  work 
of  this  Endowment  is  an  effort,  by  Exchange 
Professorships,  or  Lectureships,  to  make  the 
different  peoples  better  acquainted  with  one 
another,  and  to  lay  the  foundations  of  inter 
national  peace  in  international  knowledge. 
Ignorance  is  the  prolific  source  of  race  preju 
dice  and  hostility;  it  creates  the  conditions 
which  make  race  bigots,  light-minded  public 
men,  and  irresponsible  newspapers  dangerous 
foes  to  the  highest  interests  of  the  world. 

Dr.  Nitobe  was  happily  chosen  as  the  first 
Exchange  Professor  from  Japan,  and  his  ad 
dresses  delivered  in  six  representative  uni 
versities  and  before  learned  and  popular 
organizations  were  listened  to  with  great  in 
terest  ;  and,  published  in  book  form  by  Messrs. 
G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  present  an  interpreta 
tion  of  the  Japanese  people  at  once  deeply 
interesting  and  authoritative. 

It  was  the  good  fortune  of  the  writer  of  this 
book  to  be  sent  to  Japan  on  the  same  Endow 
ment  as  the  first  Exchange  Professor,  or,  to  be 
more  accurate,  Lecturer,  from  the  United 
States,  and  to  receive  from  government  offi- 

vi 


PREFACE 

cials,  from  the  universities,  from  schools,  from 
organizations,  both  public  and  private,  and 
from  numberless  persons  in  private  life,  cour 
tesies  which  gave  kindness  new  qualities  of 
charm  and  delicate  consideration.  In  the 
course  of  six  months'  travel  and  the  delivery 
of  nearly  eighty  addresses  in  Japan,  Korea, 
and  Manchuria,  there  was  never  an  hour  of 
loneliness.  From  the  day  when  wireless  mes 
sages  of  welcome  began  to  greet  the  visitors, 
three  days  out,  to  the  day  when  they  followed 
the  home-coming  steamer  three  days  at  sea, 
there  was  the  unfailing  consciousness  of  being 
surrounded  by  friends. 

From  the  addresses  delivered  in  the  Impe 
rial  Universities  of  Tokyo  and  Kyoto,  the  pri 
vately  endowed  or  supported  universities  of 
Waseda  and  Keio  and  the  Doshisha,  in  many 
schools  and  before  many  popular  audiences, 
the  chapters  in  this  book,  with  a  single  excep 
tion,  have  been  selected  and  are  presented 
substantially  as  they  were  delivered.  The 
chapter  on  "  The  American  in  Art,"  reprinted 
by  the  courtesy  of  the  editor  of  the  Atlantic 
Monthly  Magazine,  is  included  to  give  greater 

vii 


PREFACE 

completeness  to  this  outline  sketch  of  Ameri 
can  society  and  life.  It  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  these  addresses  were  delivered  to  audi 
ences  of  unusual  intellectual  alertness  and  re 
markable  knowledge  of  the  English  language, 
but  who  were  largely  unfamiliar  with  Ameri 
can  history  and  institutions.  No  attempt  has 
been  made  to  do  more,  on  the  historical  side, 
than  to  sketch  with  a  free  hand  and  in  large 
outline,  the  development  of  the  American 
people,  bringing  into  view  only  those  events 
which  have  contributed  to  that  development 
and  disclose  and  interpret  the  American  spirit. 
If  this  book  shall  serve  as  an  introductory 
sketch  of  a  nation  which,  like  Japan,  is  often 
misrepresented  and  misunderstood,  its  purpose 
will  be  accomplished. 


H.  W.  M. 


SEAL  HARBOR,  ME., 
August  16,  1913. 


vm 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.  CLEARING  THE  WAY         ....  1 

II.  DISCOVERY  AND  EXPLORATION         .        .  34 

III.  POSSESSING  THE  CONTINENT    ...  61 

IV.  PROVINCIAL  AMERICA  IN  LITERATURE      .  91 
V.  SECTIONAL  LITERATURE   .        .         .         .128 

VI.  NATIONAL  LITERATURE    ....  156 

VII.  THE  AMERICAN  IN  ART    ....  189 

VIII.  SCHOOL  AND  COLLEGE      ....  214 

IX.  UNIVERSITY  AND  RESEARCH  WORK  .  245 

X.  THE  AMERICAN  AND  HIS  GOVERNMENT  .  267 

XI.  COUNTRY  AND  PEOPLE  295 


IX 


AMERICAN  IDEALS,  CHARACTER 
AND  LIFE 

I 
CLEARING  THE  WAY 

FOR  many  years  past  Japan  has  held  a 
first  place  in  the  interest  of  Americans,  and 
they  have  followed  its  extraordinary  and 
brilliant  career,  not  only  with  admiration,  but 
with  an  ardent  desire  to  know  the  historical 
sources  of  a  national  strength  directed  with 
such  intelligence  and  used  with  such  efficiency. 
They  were  quick  to  perceive  that  a  people 
does  not  suddenly  appear  on  the  stage  of 
the  world  in  command  of  such  moral  and 
physical  forces  unless  it  has  been  subjected 
to  a  severe  discipline  of  spirit  and  mind,  and 
they  have  been  eager  to  discover  the  secret 
of  modern  Japan  in  the  ideals  and  education 
of  old  Japan.  This  combination  of  subtle 
artistic  instinct  and  skill  with  high  military 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

efficiency;  in  what  age-long  training  of  eye, 
of  imagination,  of  will,  was  it  made  possible  ? 
This  inbred  courtesy  unimpaired  by  a  swiftly 
acquired  practical  efficiency,  this  capacity 
for  suddenly  changing  tools  and  weapons  and 
yet  using  them  with  veteran  ease  and  skill 
—  the  explanation  of  this  vigor  of  the  fiber 
of  character  and  this  facile  intelligence  lies 
deep  in  the  history  of  old  Japan;  and  there 
we  have  searched  and  fancied  we  have  found 
it  in  the  interpretations  of  a  large  group  of 
native  and  foreign  students  and  observers. 
And  so  there  has  been  born  in  the  hearts  of 
intelligent  Americans  an  admiration  for  the 
Japanese  nation  at  once  historical  and  pro 
phetic  ;  a  deep  respect  for  what  has  been  ac 
complished,  a  keen  anticipation  of  a  career 
in  the  near  and  far  future  full  of  dramatic 
possibilities  of  achievement  on  the  higher 
planes  of  civilization.  v 

We  have  tried  to  understand  Japan  by 
gaining  access  to  its  fundamental  ideas  of 
life  and  character :  those  ideas  of  which  its 
activities  have  been  a  varied  but  unified  ex 
pression.  It  is  my  hope  to  make  my  own 


CLEARING  THE   WAY 

country  in  some  small  measure  more  com 
prehensible  by  definition  of  its  historic  ideas, 
its  inheritance  of  religious,  ethical  and  political 
convictions,  the  physical  conditions  under 
which  it  has  been  compelled  to  work  out  its 
vital  problems  and  fashion  its  political  in 
stitutions  ;  to  bring  before  you,  so  far  as  I 
am  able,  the  American  behind  his  political 
and  business  activities.  This  is  no  light  task 
and  is  not  approached  in  a  light  spirit.  The 
long  separation  of  the  East  and  the  West  has 
made  it  difficult  for  the  men  of  the  East  and 
the  men  of  the  West  to  understand  one 
another;  but  I  utterly  reject  the  idea  that 
they  cannot  understand  one  another;  that 
differences  of  landscape,  climate,  religion, 
political  and  social  ideal,  have  been  so  wrought 
into  temperament  and  character  that  a  per 
manent  barrier  has  been  built  between  the 
East  and  West.  Such  a  barrier  may  exist 
for  a  little  time  in  the  minds  of  men  of  selfish 
interest  and  narrow  racial  feeling,  but  it  has 
never  risen  in  the  minds  of  men  of  vision  East 
or  West ;  and  the  future  belongs  not  to  traders 
and  race  bigots,  but  to  men  who,  in  states- 

3 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

manship  and  in  commerce,  recognize  that  the 
world,  which  has  become  a  neighborhood,  is 
on  the  way  to  become  a  brotherhood. 

The  German  poet  Goethe,  one  of  the  most 
penetrating  thinkers  and  critics  of  the  West, 
declared  that  the  prime  quality  of  the  real 
critic  is  sympathy.  There  is  no  other  ap 
proach  to  a  man  or  a  race.  Men  rarely  un 
derstand  that  which  they  hate,  but  they 
rarely  fail  to  understand  that  which  they  love. 
There  was  in  the  London  of  the  time  of  Charles 
Lamb,  that  master  of  the  essay  of  sentiment 
and  humor,  a  man  who  was  widely  detested 
because  he  was  of  a  peculiarly  irritating  dull 
ness  of  mind.  This  man's  name  came  up  one 
day  in  conversation,  and  Lamb  was  asked  if  he 
did  not  hate  him.  "How  can  I  hate  a  man  I 
know?"  was  the  illuminating  answer  of  a 
writer  who  knew  well  the  weaknesses  of  his 
fellows  because  he  knew  his  own  frailties. 
The  French  maxim,  that  to  know  all  would  be 
to  forgive  all,  may  need  some  qualification ; 
but  distrust,  dislike  and  hatred  are  so  often 
conceived  in  ignorance  and  born  in  blindness 
of  mind  that  the  truth  at  the  heart  of  it  may 

4 


CLEARING  THE  WAY 

be  safely  accepted  as  a  guide  to  judgment, 
and  especially  to  international  judgment. 
The  beginning  of  wisdom  in  these  matters  is 
an  open  mind  and  the  readiness  to  approach 
a  nation  along  its  own  highways. 

No  man  can  understand  a  foreign  people 
until  he  studies  them  in  the  light  of  their  own 
ideals.  France  is  a  closed  book  to  the  Eng 
lishman  or  American  who  does  not  recognize 
at  the  start  that  in  that  country  the  social 
unit  is  the  family,  while  among  the  English- 
speaking  peoples  the  social  unit  is  the  individ 
ual.  The  French  and  English  misunderstood 
one  another  for  centuries,  because  they  held 
stubbornly  to  certain  preconceptions  instead 
of  approaching  one  another  with  open  minds ; 
and  only  lately,  discarding  old-time  popular 
pre judgments,  have  they  begun  to  recognize 
the  great  qualities  which  other  peoples  have 
seen  in  both  nations.  A  nation  of  shop 
keepers  does  not  produce  Tennysons,  Darwins, 
Gladstones  and  Gordons ;  nor  does  a  frivolous 
people  given  over  to  amusement,  produce 
Gambettas,  Pasteurs,  Brunetieres. 

It  has  been  the  good  fortune  of  Japan  to 
5 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

disarm  many  foreign  critics  at  the  very  start 
and  to  lay  a  spell  on  many  hard-minded  but 
quick-spoken  judges  who  would  otherwise 
have  been  harsh  judges  of  a  people  they  ap 
proached  with  the  preconceptions  of  the  West 
ern  mind ;  but  even  Japan,  most  courteous  of 
countries,  has  not  escaped  those  who  suspect 
everything  that  is  strange  and  condemn  every 
thing  they  do  not  understand. 

No  people,  however,  have  borne  a  heavier 
burden  of  misunderstanding  than  the  Ameri 
cans,  and  for  very  obvious  reasons  :  differences 
of  social  structure  and  habit  so  radical  and 
so  fundamental  that  until  they  are  taken  into 
account  the  United  States  is,  to  the  mind 
which  approaches  it  from  the  European  or 
the  Oriental  point  of  view,  a  vast  and  baffling 
confusion.  From  the  very  beginning  there 
have  been  men  and  women  who  have  gone  to 
the  Far  West,  as  there  have  been  those  who 
have  come  to  the  Far  East,  not  to  judge,  but 
to  understand ;  and  Americans  are  fortunate 
in  possessing  a  small  group  of  interpretations 
of  their  social  and  political  life  of  classic 
quality.  Between  the  hasty  and  ignorant 


CLEARING  THE  WAY 

and  the  open-minded  and  intelligent  ob 
servers,  the  opinions  expressed  have  been  of 
such  diversity  that  the  American  has  reached 
a  state  of  settled  indifference  toward  average 
foreign  opinion.  He  is  told  by  one  group  of 
observers  that  his  country  is  the  home  of 
materialism,  that  his  people  are  crude,  irrev 
erent,  indifferent  to  religion,  to  art,  to  cul 
ture;  and  he  is  told  by  another  group  that 
his  is  the  land  of  religious  enthusiasts;  that 
he  is  a  dreamer  and  a  sentimentalist;  that 
his  supreme  desire  is  not  for  money,  but  for 
education. 

Intelligent  criticism  is  a  far  greater  evidence 
of  friendship  than  indiscriminate  praise,  and 
neither  the  strong  man  nor  the  strong  people 
should  shrink  from  its  occasional  sting. 
Truth  may  weaken  the  weak ;  it  strengthens 
the  strong.  In  this  matter  of  international 
understanding,  which  may  turn  out  to  be  the 
chief  business  of  this  century,  truth-speaking 
is  of  prime  importance.  But  let  it  be  re 
membered  that  the  truth  about  a  man  or  a 
nation  is  revealed  to  the  sympathetic  only ; 
to  all  others  there  is  and  can  be  no  revelation 

7 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

of  racial  spirit  and  character.  "Over  the 
gateway  of  the  twentieth  century,"  wrote  the 
noble  German  thinker  and  teacher,  Fichte, 
"shall  be  written  the  words:  'this  is  the 
way  to  virtue,  to  justice  and  to  peace.'" 
And  that  these  great  ends  may  be  reached 
and  this  century  fulfill  this  inspiring  prophecy, 
these  other  words  of  a  Latin  writer  ought  to 
be  in  the  mind  of  every  man  who  endeavors 
to  interpret  the  life  of  a  people:  "neither  to 
laugh  nor  to  cry,  but  to  understand." 

During  the  dark  days  of  the  War  between 
the  States  the  North  was  astonished  and 
bitterly  disappointed  by  the  attitude  of  many 
of  the  leaders  of  opinion  in  England.  Forty 
years  later  in  his  Life  of  a  great  English  states 
man,  Mr.  Morley  wrote:  "Of  this  immense 
conflict  Mr.  Gladstone,  like  most  leading 
statesmen  of  the  time,  and,  like  the  majority 
of  his  own  countrymen,  failed  to  take  the  true 
measure.  The  error  that  lay  at  the  root  of 
our  English  misconceptions  of  the  American 
struggle  is  now  clear.  We  applied  ordinary 
political  maxims  to  what  was  not  merely  a 
political  contest,  but  a  social  revolution." 

8 


CLEARING  THE  WAY 

It  is  the  habit  of  applying  the  ordinary  po 
litical  maxims  of  one  country  to  the  civiliza 
tion  of  another  country  that  has  made  a  great 
deal  of  international  comment  like  the  game 
of  blindman's  buff  played  by  children ;  in 
which  there  is  much  running  to  and  fro, 
much  noise  and  general  confusion,  ending  in 
guessing  more  or  less  shrewd.  A  distin 
guished  German  student  of  American  life 
describes  one  of  his  books  as  "a  study  of  the 
Americans  as  the  best  of  them  are  and  the 
others  should  wish  to  be."  Approached  in 
this  spirit,  the  student  of  a  people  may  under 
state  the  seriousness  of  the  external  evils 
which  afflict  every  state;  he  will  almost 
unerringly  discover  the  sources  of  its  strength, 
and,  above  all,  he  will  feel  the  throb  of  its 
vitality,  which  is  the  heartbeat  of  a  nation. 

And  this  is  far  and  away  the  most  important 
fact  to  learn  about  a  people;  for  the  ulti 
mate  question  never  is,  "How  many  diseases 
has  a  nation  ?  "  The  ultimate  question  always 
is,  "How  much  vitality  has  it?"  If  it  has  a 
great  store  of  vitality,  its  diseases  are  only 
episodes  in  its  abundant  life.  It  is  easy  to 

9 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

enumerate  the  diseases  from  which  a  nation 
is  suffering,  for  they  are  largely  external,  and 
this  is  the  chief  occupation  of  the  majority 
of  international  observers ;  it  requires  in 
sight,  intelligence  and  sympathy  to  measure 
the  vitality  of  a  nation,  and  these  qualities 
are  lacking  in  the  mass  of  observers,  who  are 
impressionists  and  whose  opinions  are  colored, 
if  not  formed,  by  the  superficial  aspects  of  the 
life  around  them.  There  are  perhaps  half  a 
dozen  men  in  a  generation  in  any  country 
whose  judgment  on  another  country  has 
value;  there  are  many  who  are  competent 
to  report  obvious  conditions,  to  describe 
customs,  to  paint  with  charming  skill  the 
landscape  which  enfolds  a  nation's  daily  life; 
but  there  are  only  an  elect  few  qualified  by 
nature  as  well  as  by  training  to  uncover  the 
character  —  that  is  to  say,  the  significant 
ideals,  the  organized  energy,  the  sustaining 
vitality  —  of  a  foreign  people,  or  to  set  in 
contrast  the  strength  and  weakness  of  two 
civilizations.  The  beginning  of  wisdom  in 
this  field  is,  without  any  surrender  of  con 
victions,  to  endeavor  to  understand  and  to 

10 


CLEARING  THE   WAY 

postpone  judgment  to  a  time  of  fuller  light, 
to  escape  entirely  from  racial  prejudices  and 
national  preconceptions,  to  see  with  large 
intelligence  behind  the  eyes,  and  to  put 
away  distrust  and  antipathy  with  the  armor 
and  weapons  and  tools  that  have  been  super 
seded  by  finer  instruments. 

It  is  easier  to  understand  one's  own  country 
than  to  understand  other  countries,  but  it  is 
no  easy  task  to  interpret  a  people  one  may 
know  intimately  to  the  people  of  another 
country.  And  this  task  becomes  especially 
difficult  when  a  Japanese  endeavors  to  in 
terpret  his  people  to  Americans  or  an  Ameri 
can  undertakes  to  reveal  his  people  to  the 
Japanese.  But  Japanese  writers  have  suc 
ceeded  in  rendering  this  great  service  to 
Americans,  and  an  American  need  not  despair 
of  conveying  to  the  Japanese  a  definite  if 
very  inadequate  conception  of  his  own 
country.  It  may  be  that  the  breadth  of 
contrast  between  the  historical  background 
of  Japan  and  the  United  States  gives  to  each 
country  a  definiteness  of  outline  which  would 
be  lacking  if  one  were  attempting  to  contrast 

11 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

the  United  States  with  any  European  country, 
and  that  the  distance  which  has  separated 
the  paths  by  which  we  have  come  may  give 
us  a  deeper  and  more  open-minded  interest 
in  one  another.  In  this  hope  I  venture  to 
sketch  on  a  large  canvas  and  with  a  free  hand 
the  spirit  of  the  youngest  of  the  leading 
nations  to  one  of  the  oldest ;  a  people  spread 
over  a  continent  to  a  people  concentrated 
within  island  boundaries ;  a  people  organized 
around  the  individual  as  a  unit,  though  lack 
ing  neither  filial  nor  national  loyalty,  to  a 
people  in  whom  a  profound  and  mystical 
conception  of  the  family  has  bred  a  spirit  of 
reverence  and  obedience,  a  love  of  kindred, 
of  ruler  and  of  country,  which  have  armed  the 
empire  at  the  very  heart;  a  people  drawn 
from  many  countries  and  fed  by  many  races 
to  a  people  unified  by  ancient  community  of 
religion,  of  political  ideals  and  of  social  order 
and  custom. 

If  the  chief  end  of  civilization  is  to  develop 
the  genius  of  every  race  and  to  give  every 
individual  an  opportunity  of  making  his 
contribution  to  the  welfare  of  the  com- 


CLEARING  THE  WAY 

munity  of  races  which  the  world  is  fast  be 
coming,  then  the  general  movement  which 
we  call  evolution  will  develop  eventually, 
not  uniformity  of  political  and  social  con 
ditions  the  world  over,  but  the  widest  and 
richest  diversities  of  political  and  social  in 
stitutions,  of  educational  method,  of  the 
forms  of  expression  of  the  religious  nature. 
And  the  full  and  cordial  recognition  of  the 
variety  and  diversity  of  the  aims  and  skills 
and  methods  of  civilization  is  the  measure 
of  a  man's  understanding  of  the  modern 
world. 

To  a  man  bred  in  another  part  of  the  world, 
the  United  States  is  a  country  of  baffling 
confusion ;  he  cannot  understand  its  solidity 
and  its  apparent  fluidity,  its  deep-rooted 
political  convictions  and  its  apparent  indif 
ference  to  political  forms ;  its  essential  con 
servatism  and  the  rapid  growth  of  radical 
ideas  in  its  atmosphere. 

The  differences  between  the  political  and 
social  structure  of  the  older  countries  and  of 
this  new  country  are  manifold,  but  there  are 
three  or  four  wrhich  must  be  taken  into 

13 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

account  at  the  very  start  if  one  is  to  get  at  the 
real  character  of  the  American  people. 

In  a  community  organized  on  the  basis 
of  equality  in  political  privilege  and  before 
the  law,  the  influence  of  highly  developed 
standards  of  speech  and  manners  is  not 
supreme;  it  is  left  to  establish  itself  by  the 
long  process  of  popular  education.  There 
are  as  many  men  and  women  of  thorough 
education  and  ripeness  of  mind  in  the  United 
States  as  in  any  other  country,  but  they  are 
not  organized  into  a  class,  and  they  have 
never  defined  the  standards  of  speech  and 
manners.  Whenever  they  have  attempted 
to  do  this,  a  jealous  democracy,  entirely 
lacking  in  reverence  for  class  distinctions, 
has  overwhelmed  them  with  ridicule.  For 
superior  education,  for  ability  of  a  high  order, 
for  the  finer  aspects  of  character,  there  is 
great  respect  in  the  American  community; 
but  for  any  arrogation  of  social  superiority, 
there  is  swift  and  contemptuous  indignation. 
Of  the  twenty-seven  Presidents  of  the  United 
States,  nineteen  have  been  men  of  university 
training;  but  three  Presidents  who  have 

14 


CLEARING  THE  WAY 

lacked  this  training  -  -  Washington,  Lincoln 
and  Cleveland  -  -  have  been  statesmen  and 
patriots  whose  conspicuous  service  to  the 
Commonwealth  has  evidenced  the  educational 
influence  which  issues  from  the  institutions 
and  spirit  of  the  country.  Washington  and 
Lincoln,  born  at  the  two  extremes  of  society 
so  far  as  social  conditions  are  concerned, 
must  be  classed  with  Franklin  and  Emerson, 
among  the  most  representative  products  of 
the  popular  education  which  is  perhaps  the 
most  important  function  of  the  American 
system.  In  the  election  for  President  re 
cently  held  in  the  United  States  there  were 
three  candidates  for  that  high  office ;  of  these 
one  was  a  member  of  the  governing  body  of 
Yale  University ;  another,  after  graduation 
from  Princeton  University  and  further  study 
at  the  Johns  Hopkins  University,  for  ten 
years  previous  to  his  election  as  Governor  of 
his  State,  had  been  president  of  Princeton 
University  ;  while  the  third  is  a  member  of  the 
Board  of  Overseers  of  Harvard  University, 
the  oldest  of  American  institutions  of  the 
higher  rank,  and  is  a  man  of  notable  intel- 

15 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

lectual  achievements  and  accomplishments. 
Two  of  these  gentlemen  are  historians  and 
authors  of  distinction.  From  the  beginning, 
public  life  in  the  United  States  has  been 
crowded  with  men  of  university  education ; 
the  respect  for  education  has  deepened  into  a 
faith  so  intense  that  it  has  become  almost  a 
superstition,  and  both  public  and  private 
funds  flow  with  a  kind  of  tidal  movement  to 
the  support  of  education  and  the  enrichment 
of  its  institutions. 

Nevertheless,  the  man  whose  schooling, 
like  Lincoln's,  has  been  "less  than  a  year" 
and  who  has  never  crossed  the  threshold  of  a 
university,  has  no  more  consciousness  of  in 
feriority  in  the  presence  of  the  president  of 
the  oldest  university  than  the  lawyer  has  in 
the  presence  of  the  physician,  or  the  architect 
in  the  presence  of  the  engineer.  He  recog 
nizes  cordially  that  another  is  better  equipped 
than  he  in  a  special  kind  of  work,  but  as  a 
man  he  has  not  the  slightest  sense  of  in 
equality.  He  knows  that  the  doors  of  op 
portunity  are  open  to  him  and  that  he  can  go 
as  far  as  his  ability  and  energy  will  carry  him. 

16 


CLEARING  THE  WAY 

Americans  believe  profoundly  in  the  system 
which  rests  the  government  on  the  broadest 
foundation  of  suffrage,  which  makes  all  men 
partners  in  the  national  enterprise,  which 
exacts  no  special  preparation  of  the  man  who 
takes  part  in  public  affairs,  but  holds  the  doors 
wide,  so  that  a  man  may  start  at  the  bottom 
of  the  social  order  and  go  to  the  top.  They 
believe  in  it,  not  because  they  think  it  has 
always  secured  for  them  the  most  economical 
or  efficient  government;  but  because  they 
believe  it  the  most  just  and,  in  the  long  run, 
the  safest  form  of  political  organization ; 
and  because  they  believe  it  gives  the  processes 
of  government  a  fundamental  educational 
value  which  has  made  the  country  a  vast 
school  for  the  education  of  people  of  all  classes 
in  that  political  character  of  which  political 
institutions  are  the  vital  expression.  For 
the  strength  of  a  people  issues  from  the 
political  character  behind  their  institutions, 
and  the  institutions  are  real  and  vital  only  in 
so  far  as  they  express  that  character.  This 
is  what  Hamilton,  one  of  the  four  or  five  men 
who  had  most  to  do  with  framing  the  Ameri- 
c  17 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

can  Constitution  and  creating  its  govern 
ment,  had  in  mind  when  he  wrote:  "The 
truth  is  that  the  general  genius  of  a  govern 
ment  is  all  that  can  be  substantially  relied 
upon  for  permanent  effects.  Particular  pro 
visions,  though  not  altogether  useless,  have 
far  less  virtue  and  efficiency  than  are  com 
monly  ascribed  to  them;  and  the  want  of 
them  will  never  be,  with  men  of  sound  dis 
cernment,  a  decisive  objection  to  any  plan 
which  exhibits  the  leading  characters  of  a 
good  government." 

This  is  not  equivalent  to  saying  that  all 
forms  of  government  have  equal  value ;  it 
is  equivalent  to  saying  that  a  self-controlled 
and  disciplined  people  will  give  a  good  ac 
count  of  themselves  in  spite  of  defective 
political  institutions.  The  general  genius  of 
a  government  is  the  genius  of  a  people  or 
ganized  into  institutions  and  embodied  in 
laws.  The  searching  discipline  which  in  the 
life  of  old  Japan  laid  the  foundations  of 
modern  Japan,  and  explains  its  efficiency, 
could  not  have  been  enforced  if  it  had  not 
conformed  to  the  genius  of  the  people. 

18 


CLEARING  THE  WAY 

Americans  believe  that,  under  widely  differ 
ent  conditions,  they  have  developed  the  love 
of  country  and  the  desire  to  serve  the  nation 
with  the  fullest  consecration  of  individual 
gifts,  which  give  Japan  organized  strength 
and  skill. 

But  they  are  not  blind  to  the  perils  of  this 
system,  nor  are  they  unconscious  of  the  diffi 
culties  which  it  presents  to  men  of  older  com 
munities  who  sincerely  endeavor  to  under 
stand  it.  Such  observers  find  it  difficult  to 
believe  that  the  order  and  self-control,  which 
are  the  primary  conditions  of  government, 
can  be  secured  in  communities  in  which  in 
dividuality  has  such  freedom  of  expression 
and  of  action  that  it  seems  at  times  to  obscure 
and  threaten  the  very  existence  of  the  state. 
Above  all,  they  are  confused  by  the  absence 
of  authoritative  sources  of  public  opinion, 
by  the  diversity  of  sentiment  on  all  manner 
of  questions  which  affect  the  public  wel 
fare,  which,  at  times,  gives  the  country  the 
appearance  of  a  vast  debating  society  in 
stead  of  a  stable,  strongly  organized  com 
munity.  They  hear  a  noisy  confusion  of 

19 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

sounds  when  they  look  for  an  authoritative 
expression  of  national  judgment;  they  find 
uneducated  and  unthinking  people  confi 
dently  and  noisily  asserting  their  represent 
ative  capacity  as  Americans ;  they  find  the 
American  press  conspicuously  displaying  the 
disorders  of  the  country  in  headlines  that 
seem  by  their  very  size  to  indicate  the  im 
mense  significance  of  the  crimes,  scandals 
and  violations  of  law  which  they  report. 
"Democracy,"  said  Pasteur,  "is  that  order 
in  the  state  which  permits  each  individual  to 
put  forth  his  utmost  effort."  The  American 
believes  so  completely  in  this  system,  so  far 
as  his  own  country  is  concerned,  that  he  is 
willing  to  accept  the  excesses  of  individuality 
which  are  inseparable  from  it. 

But  he  is  not  blind  to  the  risks  of  mis 
representation  to  which  the  country  is  ex 
posed.  He  is  not  disturbed  by  these  excesses 
because  he  sees  them  in  perspective;  the 
foreign  observer,  unfortunately,  sees  them 
out  of  perspective.  There  are  people  of 
vulgar  speech,  manners  and  dress  in  every 
country;  people  of  this  type  are  no  more 

20 


CLEARING  THE  WAY 

numerous  in  America  than  in  other  countries, 
and  they  have  qualities  which  are  often  lack 
ing  in  the  vulgarians  of  other  nationalities. 
They  are  usually  disposed  to  be  helpful  and 
neighborly ;  they  feel  themselves  responsible 
for  the  comfort  of  women  and  the  safety  of 
children.  But  they  have,  as  a  rule,  larger 
means  than  people  of  the  same  type  in  other 
countries,  and  they  are  more  given  to  travel. 
They  spend  more  lavishly  than  the  same 
class  in  other  countries,  and  they  are  more 
given  to  self-assertion.  As  a  result  they 
convey  the  impression  that  the  vulgarian 
exists  in  far  greater  numbers  in  America  than 
elsewhere.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  does  not ; 
but,  lacking  the  repression  which  recognized 
authority,  either  legal  or  social,  imposes  upon 
people  of  his  type  under  other  systems,  he 
is  much  more  in  evidence.  His  assumption 
of  equality,  which  is  a  matter  of  course  at 
home,  often  becomes  aggressive  and  offen 
sive  abroad ;  and  his  patriotism,  which  finds 
ready  and  normal  expression  in  his  own  com 
munity,  is  heightened  abroad  into  a  kind  of 
flamboyant  Americanism  which  is  often  a 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

childish  expression  of  love  of  country  rather 
than  an  intention  to  affront  the  people  whose 
guest  he  happens  to  be.  Japan  is  the  only 
country  in  the  world  in  which  politeness  has 
been  made  part  of  the  national  discipline; 
in  all  other  countries  it  is  a  matter  of  social 
tradition  and  standards,  of  family  training  or 
of  individual  instinct  and  cultivation.  The 
American  vulgarian  traveling  abroad  is  so 
vociferous  that  he  multiplies  himself;  and 
becomes,  to  those  who  cannot  see  him  in 
perspective,  representative  of  a  host  of  people 
in  his  own  land,  when,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he 
stands  for  no  larger  minority  than  the  vulga 
rian  in  other  countries. 

Americans  have  always  traveled  in  large 
numbers,  and  Europe  and  the  Far  East  have 
furnished  the  opportunities  and  the  materials 
for  a  kind  of  popular  university  course  for 
many  whose  means  have  outstripped  their 
education,  and  the  fact  that  they  sometimes 
misrepresent  the  country  from  which  they 
come]  is  a  small  price  to  pay  for  the  gains 
they  make  in  knowledge  and  breadth  of  view 
through  contact  with  other  types  of  civiliza- 


CLEARING  THE   WAY 

tions  and  with  the  art  and  genius  of  the  older 
world. 

In  the  open  field  of  individual  endeavor, 
training  comes  largely  through  practice,  and 
Americans  not  only  pay  great  sums  of  money 
for  popular  education,  but  make  great  sacri 
fices  of  time,  patience  and  of  good  repute 
among  other  nations  by  permitting  prepara 
tion  for  every  kind  of  public  work  to  be 
made  in  public  rather  than  in  the  privacy  of 
the  schools.  This  is  one  of  the  most  radical 
aspects  of  democracy  and  one  which  is  most 
disconcerting  to  men  bred  under  other  sys 
tems.  To  such  men  it  seems  incredible  that 
a  man  without  special  training  should  reach 
the  great  position  of  the  Presidency;  an 
office  not  only  of  great  honor,  but  clothed 
with  powers  transcending  those  intrusted 
to  heads  of  state  in  many  less  democratic 
governments.  The  question  of  the  possi 
bility  of  wisely  directing  the  affairs  of  a  vast 
community  without  technical  training  has 
been  answered  in  America  many  times  by  the 
appearance  in  the  forefront  of  public  affairs 
of  men  of  great  capacity  and  dignity  of 

23 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

character,  who  have  shown  special  aptitude 
for  dealing  wisely  and  strongly  with  questions 
of  national  policy.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  none 
of  these  men  of  light  and  leading  has  lacked 
education  for  his  work,  but  the  education 
has  not  been  academic.  Lincoln  had  a  prep 
aration,  that  is  to  say,  an  education,  for  his 
immense  responsibilities  that  could  hardly 
have  been  more  completely  fitted  to  his  needs 
if  he  had  passed  through  every  grade  of  school 
and  college.  Side  by  side  with  their  passion 
ate  faith  in  formal  education,  Americans  have 
a  deep  and  unshakable  faith  in  the  educational 
influence  of  their  ideals  of  life  organized  in 
their  institutions,  in  the  large  liberty  of  action 
which  they  enjoy,  in  the  inspiration  of  hope 
and  the  stimulation  of  individual  initiative, 
which  are  in  the  air  they  breathe.  Their 
system  rests  on  faith  in  the  capacity  of  men 
to  govern  themselves  by  intrusting  them 
with  full  responsibility  for  the  management 
of  the  greatest  affairs  of  society ;  and  they 
believe  that  whatever  mistakes  may  be  made 
by  the  way,  —  and  they  have  been  many  and 
serious,  —  the  state  gains  in  the  long  run  the 

M 


CLEARING  THE  WAY 

service  of  men  who  have  learned  in  the  school 
of  national  life  how,  wisely  and  effectively,  to 
give  expression  to  that  life. 

The  standards  of  requirement  for  the  pro 
fessions  and  for  all  occupations  in  America 
are  now  practically  what  they  are  in  older 
countries ;  the  quality  of  the  training  in  the 
American  military  and  naval  academies  is 
well  understood  in  Japan;  the  movement 
towards  more  exacting  requirements  in  all 
departments  of  the  government  service  goes 
steadily  forward ;  nevertheless,  it  remains 
true  that  access  to  the  public  in  America  is 
open  to  every  one  who  is  sufficiently  eager  or 
ambitious  to  secure  the  means.  The  result 
is  a  large  and  often  clamorous  expression  of 
ill-digested  opinions,  which  range  from  the 
na'ive  simplicity  of  childlike  ignorance  to  the 
most  fantastic  radicalism.  There  is  prob 
ably  no  theory  of  religion,  no  conception  of 
government,  no  ideal  of  social  life,  that  has 
not  been  exploited  in  America;  and  often 
by  those  whose  perfectly  obvious  ignorance 
of  elementary  facts  have  shown  them,  at 
the  very  start,  entirely  without  the  capacity 

25 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

for  public  teaching.  In  Europe,  as  a  rule, 
access  to  the  public  through  books,  magazines, 
addresses,  serihons,  pamphlets,  is  secured 
only  by  those  who  have  some  educational 
qualifications  for  the  responsibility  they  have 
taken  upon  themselves.  The  views  expressed 
may  be  subversive  of  every  existing  institu 
tion,  —  for  there  is  far  more  radicalism  of 
a  destructive  kind  in  Europe  than  in  the 
United  States,  —  but  the  man  who  speaks 
or  writes,  as  a  rule,  brings  to  his  work  some 
degree  of  intellectual  preparation  and  com 
mands,  therefore,  a  certain  degree  of  attention. 
In  America,  on  the  other  hand,  any  man 
may  write  or  speak  who  can  secure  the  use 
of  a  platform  or  command  the  services  of  a 
printer.  There  is,  as  a  result,  a  vast  amount 
of  talking  and  of  writing  which  is  of  no  im 
portance  to  any  one  but  the  speaker  or  writer, 
and  which  greatly  confuses  the  observer  who 
is  trying  to  ascertain  the  drift  of  public  opin 
ion.  In  the  great  public  school  which  the 
American  community  has  become,  the  various 
grades  make  their  recitations  with  equal 
emphasis,  and  the  man  of  another  country 

26 


CLEARING   THE  WAY 

finds  it  difficult  to  distinguish  between  those 
who  are  just  beginning  to  learn  the  rudiments 
of  knowledge  and  those  who  have  become 
expert.  In  this  respect  America  is  a  noisy 
and  confusing  country  in  which,  at  times, 
every  one  seems  to  be  talking  at  once;  and 
those  who  have  the  least  claim  on  public 
attention  are  often  the  most  vociferous. 

It  happens,  therefore,  when  an  international 
question  arises,  that  those  who  know  least 
about  it  become  voluble  and  clamorous  and 
seem  at  the  moment  to  express  the  convictions 
of  a  nation,  when,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  their 
talk  is  like  the  foam  on  a  sea  which  is  restless 
only  at  its  edges.  In  all  countries  there  is  a 
class  of  men  who  are  made  giddy  by  inter 
national  questions  and  rush  into  declamation 
before  the  country  has  begun  to  think.  Of 
men  of  this  temper  in  public  life,  America 
has  perhaps  more  than  its  share,  —  though 
it  must  be  remembered  that  the  most  thor 
ough  training  often  fails  to  put  reason  in 
command  of  emotion  in  moments  of  tense 
feeling ;  and  these  unseasoned  talkers  and 
writers  sometimes  assume  to  speak  for  the 

27 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

nation  when  the  nation  does  not  give  them  a 
passing  thought.  America  is  often  grossly 
misrepresented  by  these  ardent  but  unintelli 
gent  orators,  whose  utterances  are  endured 
at  home  as  part  of  the  price  of  popular  gov 
ernment,  but  are  taken  abroad  as  serious 
expressions  of  national  opinion.  In  spite  of 
the  ear-piercing  noise  of  escaping  steam, 
Americans  believe  in  keeping  the  throttle 
valves  open  and  enduring  the  discomfort  for 
the  sake  of  the  safety. 

This  same  latitude  of  expression  makes 
the  American  press  a  powerful  organ  of  health 
ful  opinion  on  the  one  hand,  and  a  serious 
menace  to  the  higher  life  of  the  country  on 
the  other.  Journalism  is  one  of  the  latest 
occupations  to  secure  the  rank  of  a  profession ; 
under  the  American  system  it  is  as  great  a 
necessity  as  the  transcontinental  railways. 
All  public  questions  ultimately  reach  the 
people  and  are  settled  by  them ;  they  con 
stitute,  therefore,  a  great  jury  to  whom,  in 
all  debated  matters,  the  evidence  must  be 
submitted.  The  newspaper  is  the  medium 
through  which  facts  and  arguments  are  pre- 
28 


CLEARING  THE  WAY 

sented  to  the  jury.  In  many  respects  this 
duty  —  for  such  it  is  to  a  man  who  has  any 
sense  of  responsibility  for  the  use  of  a  powerful 
instrument  for  good  or  evil  —  is  discharged 
with  ability  and  intelligence.  For  the  news 
paper  has  passed  through  the  preliminary 
stage  of  purely  individualistic  enterprise  and, 
in  many  cases,  has  taken  on  something  ap 
proaching  institutional  stability  and  con 
tinuity.  The  age  of  the  newspaper  created 
and  directed  by  one  strong  man  of  marked 
individuality  who  made  his  journal  a  personal 
organ  has  passed ;  a  first-class  newspaper  of 
to-day  is  a  highly  organized  enterprise  con 
ducted  by  a  group  of  men,  the  majority  of 
whom  are  often  men  of  university  training. 

But  while  journalism  as  a  whole  has  passed 
through  this  evolution,  a  new  and  lower  type 
of  newspaper  has  come  into  existence,  the 
special  characteristic  of  which  is  the  gathering 
of  news  of  all  sorts  and  kinds  and  its  presen 
tation  in  the  most  sensational  form.  The 
collection  of  news  has  been  raised  to  the  dig 
nity  of  a  science  by  the  American  press,  in 
the  service  of  which  able  men  have  shown  the 

29 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

* 

highest  qualities  of  daring,  devotion,  self- 
denial,  self-sacrifice  and  dauntless  energy. 
In  journals  of  the  higher  class,  readers  are 
kept  in  close  touch  with  the  current  history 
of  the  world  in  all  fields  of  endeavor;  in 
journals  of  the  lower  class  the  emphasis  is 
laid  on  whatever  is  sensational  in  eccentricity, 
criminality  or  social  offensiveness.  The  com 
petition  for  news  is  so  keen  that  nothing  es 
capes  to  which  any  degree  of  interest  attaches. 
Morning  and  evening,  the  entire  continent  is 
swept  clean  of  every  fact,  rumor  or  report 
that  can  furnish  material  for  a  headline. 
No  event  is  so  local  or  so  trivial  as  to  escape 
the  notice  of  these  news  scavengers ;  for 
such  this  class  of  reporters  are.  No  place, 
time  or  person  is  sacred  to  them ;  no  pity  for 
sorrow,  no  regard  for  the  innocent,  no  con 
sideration  for  the  unfortunate,  no  sense  of 
justice,  halts  for  a  moment  this  relentless 
search  for  anything  that  can,  by  any  heighten 
ing  or  lowering  of  the  lights,  any  perversion 
of  facts,  any  use  of  insinuation  or  suggestion, 
gain  a  scandalous  interest.  I  speak  only  of 
the  sensational  newspaper,  but  there  are  so 

30 


CLEARING  THE  WAY 

many  newspapers  of  this  type  that  they  con 
stitute  a  real  menace  to  the  higher  life  of  the 
nation,  and  they  must  be  taken  into  account 
in  any  attempt  to  understand  the  America  of 
To-day.  These  journals  have  made  the  dis 
covery  that  uneducated  men  and  women 
are  interested  primarily  in  the  personal  as 
pects  of  news,  and  their  endeavor  is  to  report 
news  about  persons  with  the  ruthless  detail 
of  the  most  radical  realist.  And,  in  order  to 
give  it  dramatic  interest,  they  stop  at  no  per 
version  or  exaggeration.  The  foreign  reader 
of  American  newspapers  is  appalled  by  the 
number  and  variety  of  legal,  moral  and  social 
offenses  reported  —  murders,  outbreaks  of 
mob  violence,  crimes  against  property  and 
against  the  family,  shameful,  or,  rather, 
shameless,  divorces,  eccentricities,  vulgarities, 
frivolities  so  insignificant  that  they  lie  below 
the  normal  interest  of  a  country  journal. 
Such  a  reader  wonders  how  a  country  so  given 
over  to  crime  and  folly  can  live  for  a  day  and 
does  not  know  that  he  is  reading  on  one  page 
all  the  crimes  and  peccadillos  he  would  dis 
cover  if  he  read  all  the  local  journals  in  his 

31 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

own  country.  In  some  newspapers  village 
gossip  has  assumed  national  proportions  and 
importance. 

If  the  foreign  observer  is  not  to  be  as 
grossly  misled  with  regard  to  moral  and  social 
conditions  as  he  has  been  too  often  with  re 
gard  to  the  attitude  of  Americans  toward 
money,  he  must  take  into  account  the  excess 
of  publicity  in  America.  It  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  there  is  five  times  as  much  pub 
licity  in  America  as  in  England,  ten  times  as 
much  as  in  Germany,  twenty  times  as  much 
as  in  Russia,  and  fifty  times  as  much  as  in 
India.  He  must  make  large  allowance  also 
for  perversions,  exaggerations  and  inven 
tions  so  ingenious,  so  daring  and  often  so 
Original,  that  they  reveal  misdirected  capacity 
for  fiction  writing.  He  must  remember  that 
in  journals  of  the  sensational  kind  the  en 
deavor  is  not  to  present  facts,  but  to  tell  a 
thrilling  or  dramatic  story. 

To  understand  Japan,  an  American  must 
free  his  mind  of  many  preconceptions ;  to 
understand  America,  the  Japanese  student 
must  not  only  free  his  mind  of  his  precon- 

32 


CLEARING  THE   WAY 

ceptions  of  political  and  social  order,  but  must 
learn  how  little  real  importance  in  America 
many  persons  have  who  seem  to  speak  with 
authority ;  how  misleading  the  utterances  of 
public  men  often  are  unless  one  knows  their 
character  and  standing ;  and  how  grossly 
many  American  newspapers  misrepresent  the 
spirit  of  the  nation  and  the  daily  life  of  the 
people. 


33 


II 

DISCOVERY  AND  EXPLORATION 

THE  fortunes  of  the  Far  West  have  been 
interwoven  with  those  of  the  Far  East  from 
the  first  discoveries.  The  peoples  who 
traveled  farthest  from  the  plains  of  Asia 
lost  touch  with  those  who  stayed  nearer  the 
earliest  home  of  the  race,  but  were  never 
wholly  severed  from  them.  The  separation 
of  the  different  races  in  Europe  during  the 
Middle  Ages  was  almost  as  great  as  the  sepa 
ration  between  Europe  and  Asia.  After  the 
final  collapse  of  the  Roman  Empire,  which 
made  way  for  the  development  of  modern 
nationalities,  war  was  the  chief  form  of  in 
tercourse  between  the  rising  communities 
that  were  becoming  nations.  At  the  close 
of  that  period  the  two  centuries  in  which  the 
crusaders  stirred  the  imagination  of  Europe 
and  disturbed  the  peace  of  the  nearer  Orient 
renewed  an  acquaintance  which  had  become 
fitful  and  occasional,  spread  curiosity  about 

34 


DISCOVERY  AND  EXPLORATION 

Oriental  life,  and  made  Europe  aware  of  the 
art  and  luxury  of  the  Far  East.  Trade  be 
tween  the  two  sections  began  to  grow ;  for, 
while  Europe  had  only  metals,  woolens  and 
minerals  to  sell,  it  was  an  eager  purchaser  of 
spices,  cinnamon,  pepper,  ginger,  of  precious 
stones  from  India  and  Persia,  of  pearls  from 
Ceylon,  of  drugs,  perfumes  and  sweet-smell 
ing  woods  from  Borneo  and  Sumatra,  of 
glass  from  Damascus  and  Samarcand,  of 
porcelain  from  China,  of  silk,  satins,  tapes 
tries,  rugs  from  Cashmere  and  from  half  a 
hundred  ancient  cities.  Oriental  merchants 
became  familiar  figures  in  the  Mediterranean 
ports,  and  the  traffic  in  fragrant  and  beautiful 
things  not  only  grew  into  an  organized  com 
merce,  but  gave  the  relations  between  East 
and  West  an  element  of  romantic  interest. 
Centuries  later,  when  the  ships  built  in  the 
shipyards  of  New  England  made  their  long 
voyages  to  India  and  China,  the  boys  who 
spent  their  half  holidays  on  the  old  docks 
came  to  associate  the  Far  East  with  the  pene 
trating  fragrance  which  was  wafted  ashore 
from  bidden  cargoes. 

35 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

The  commerce  between  Europe  and  Asia 
was  in  the  last  degree  adventurous  and  peril 
ous,  but  it  developed  into  an  extensive  trade 
carried  on  along  three  routes.  The  southern 
most,  following  the  coast  from  Japan  through 
the  Malay  Islands,  touched  at  Ceylon,  passed 
up  the  Arabian  Sea  and  through  the  Persian 
Gulf  to  Persia ;  or,  crossing  the  Arabian  Sea, 
reached  Cairo  and  the  Mediterranean  by  way 
of  the  Red  Sea.  This  was  an  all-sea  route, 
and,  though  beset  with  perils,  was  less  dan 
gerous  and  fatiguing  than  the  more  northern 
routes.  Of  these  there  were  two.  One 
started  on  the  eastern  coast  of  China,  crossed 
that  country  to  Turkestan,  and,  by  means  of 
a  network  of  shorter  routes,  opened  up  the 
cities  of  Persia,  of  Palestine,  of  Asia  Minor, 
and  brought  eastern  Europe  and  western 
Asia  into  contact  on  the  Bosporus  and  the 
Black  Sea.  The  other  and  northernmost 
route  started  from  Peking,  crossed  China  on 
its  northern  boundaries,  and  by  way  of 
Kashgar,  Bakhara  and  the  shores  of  the  Aral 
and  Caspian  seas,  crossed  the  Volga  and 
reached  the  Black  Sea.  These  main  lines  of 

36 


DISCOVERY  AND  EXPLORATION 

transportation  were  connected  by  short  routes 
with  the  centers  of  European  trade ;  from 
the  terminals  on  the  Mediterranean  goods 
from  the  Orient  were  carried  by  water  to 
Pisa,  Venice,  Genoa,  Barcelona,  Marseilles, 
London  and  other  English  ports,  and  to  Bel 
gium  ;  whence  they  were  sent  by  land  to 
Germany,  France  and  the  Netherlands. 

For  many  decades,  by  caravans  of  camels, 
on  the  backs  of  mules,  or  of  stout  carriers 
capable  of  almost  incredible  feats  of  strength 
in  walking  long  distances  with  heavy  loads, 
by  seacraft  and  river  boats  of  many  shapes, 
the  Far  East  traded  with  the  West,  and  at  the 
beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century  European 
merchants  had  their  quarters  in  many  Eastern 
cities ;  and  communication  between  East 
and  West,  though  perilous,  was  well  estab 
lished  and  fairly  regular. 

Then  the  Turks  appeared  on  the  scene,  and 
the  control  of  the  Eastern  Mediterranean 
passed  into  their  hands.  The  fall  of  Con 
stantinople  in  1453  was  followed  by  the  con 
quest  of  the  territories  held  by  Venice,  of  the 
islands  of  the  Greek  archipelago,  of  Lesbos 

37 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

and  Chios,  long  under  the  rule  of  Genoa. 
Turkish  fleets  preyed  on  trading  ships  along 
the  Levant,  while  the  northern  routes  were 
disturbed  by  recurring  wars.  For  a  time 
goods  from  Asia  were  sent  through  the  ports 
on  the  Red  Sea  and  through  Syria,  but  early 
in  the  sixteenth  century  this  great  territory  fell 
into  Turkish  hands. 

Few  events  have  so  rapidly  made  radical 
changes  in  the  economic  conditions  of  the 
world  as  the  appearance  of  the  Turks  in 
Europe.  The  Italian  cities,  which  had  been 
the  distributing  centers  of  the  old  commerce, 
declined ;  commercial  supremacy  passed  from 
Venice  to  Amsterdam;  trade  between  the 
East  and  the  West  was  blocked,  and  the  dis 
covery  of  America  became  inevitable  in  the 
near  future. 

Many  influences  were  at  work  which  would 
sooner  or  later  have  brought  the  New  World 
above  the  western  horizon,  but  the  barriers 
between  East  and  West  made  it  necessary  to 
establish  new  routes  of  communication.  Eu 
rope  was  rapidly  increasing  in  wealth,  the 
luxuries  supplied  by  the  East  were  increasingly 

38 


DISCOVERY  AND   EXPLORATION 

valued;  and  the  love  of  beauty,  stimulated 
by  the  Renaissance,  craved  the  art  of  the 
East.  To  find  a  new  passage  to  the  Orient 
became  the  dream  of  the  adventurous  navi 
gators  of  Italy,  Portugal,  Spain  and  Eng 
land.  Italian  mathematicians'  maps,  charts, 
ships  and  sailors  were  ready,  and  when 
Italian  commercial  prosperity  began  to  wane, 
Italian  influence  through  the  arts,  through 
literature  and  science,  rendered  the  world 
services  of  incalculable  value.  Italy  played 
no  such  part  in  the  actual  discovery  of  America 
as  Spain,  Portugal,  France  and  England; 
but  she  was  the  teacher  of  all  these  nations  in 
the  art  of  navigation,  and  she  was  the  maker 
of  their  instruments.  When  the  commerce  of 
the  East  was  taken  out  of  her  hands,  she 
turned  the  mind  of  Europe  westward  and  led 
the  way  to  that  enlargement  of  the  world 
which  has  made  East  and  West  members  of 
the  community  of  nations. 

The  fact  that  America  was  discovered  in 
the  endeavor  to  find  a  new  way  of  getting  to  the 
East,  and  that  the  newest  world  was  brought 
into  view  incidentally  by  men  on  their  way 

39 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

to  the  oldest  world,  is  a  striking  evidence  of 
an  interrelation  of  races  which  neither  ig 
norance  nor  selfishness  can  defeat;  for  the 
ends  of  the  earth  are  bound  together  by  con 
ditions  which  have  the  force  of  laws  of  nature. 
When  Columbus  sailed  from  Palos  in  August, 
1492,  his  object  was  to  reach  the  Indies; 
and  on  his  last  voyage,  six  years  later,  he  was 
under  the  illusion  that  the  eastern  coast  of 
South  America  was  the  western  coast  of  Asia. 
He  died  in  ignorance  of  the  fact  that  he  had 
discovered  a  continent.  When  John  Cabot 
was  wrecked  on  the  rocky  shores  of  Labrador 
in  1496,  he  was  on  his  way  to  Japan  and  the 
countries  from  which  caravans  brought  goods 
to  Alexandria ;  and  in  taking  formal  possession 
of  the  country  he  believed  that  he  was  extend 
ing  the  rule  of  the  English  king,  Henry  VII,  into 
Asia.  Europe  was  obsessed,  so  to  speak,  with 
the  conviction  that  there  was  a  western  passage 
to  the  East,  and  to  the  commercial  necessity 
of  such  a  passage  was  added  the  allurement  of 
Eastern  wealth  and  splendor  in  China,  Japan 
and  India,  reported  by  Marco  Polo  and  his 
brother,  the  daring  Venetian  travelers. 

40 


DISCOVERY  AND  EXPLORATION 

Cipango,  as  Japan  was  known  in  those  and 
later  days,  was  described  as  abounding  in 
"gold,  pearls  and  precious  stones,"  its  "tem 
ples  and  palaces  covered  with  gold."  Colum 
bus  called  the  inhabitants  of  the  island  in  the 
group  of  the  Bahamas  on  which  he  first 
landed,  Indians,  because  he  supposed  he  had 
found  India ;  and  he  was  convinced,  first 
that  Cuba,  and  later,  Hayti,  was  the  island 
of  Cipango.  So  deeply  rooted  was  the  con 
viction  that  Asia  had  been  reached  across  the 
western  sea  that  the  great  discoverers  and 
explorers  of  Columbus'  day  never  knew  that 
they  had  enlarged  the  world  by  a  hemisphere ; 
and  Amerigo  Vespucci  died  in  ignorance  of 
the  fact  that  his  name  was  to  be  added  to 
the  list  of  names  of  continents. 

It  was  not  until  1541,  half  a  century  after 
the  discovery,  that  the  New  World  appeared 
on  Mercator's  map  distinct  and  separate  from 
Asia,  and  the  first  feeling  which  dominated 
Europe  when  the  real  significance  of  the  dis 
coveries  in  the  West  dawned  on  the  Old 
World  was  poignant  regret  that  the  new 
lands  interposed  another  obstacle  between  the 

41 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

West  and  the  East.  These  facts  are  dramati 
cally  significant  in  these  days  when  Japan 
and  the  United  States  have  become  neigh 
bors,  and  the  Pacific  Ocean  is  likely  to  be 
come  as  familiar  a  highway  between  nations 
as  the  Atlantic  has  long  been. 

When  the  illusion  that  West  was  East 
and  the  New  World  part  of  the  oldest  world 
was  dissipated,  the  mind  of  Europe  was  still 
under  the  spell  of  dreams  of  wealth  to  be 
found  in  the  lands  beyond  seas.  Stories  of 
the  treasures  which  the  Spaniards  had  dis 
covered  in  Mexico  and  Peru  invested  the 
entire  Atlantic  coast  with  irresistible  in 
terest  for  adventurers,  gentlemen  of  fallen 
fortunes,  and  young  men  of  restless  ambition 
in  England ;  and  the  first  English  settle 
ment  in  the  country  which  is  now  the  United 
States,  at  Jamestown,  in  Virginia,  in  1607,  was 
made  by  men  who  were  in  search  of  gold  or  of 
an  open  way  to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  From  these 
dreams  the  colonists  awoke  to  the  hard  condi 
tions  of  pioneers  in  a  new  world ;  and,  with  the 
practical  genius  of  their  race,  they  began  to  raise 
tobacco;  they  established  local  government; 


DISCOVERY  AND  EXPLORATION 

they  discovered  the  value  of  the  negroes 
brought  to  them  by  a  Dutch  ship  in  1619, 
and  slave  labor  found  its  earliest  lodgment  in 
American  soil.  At  the  start  the  new  coun 
tries  were  a  refuge  from  oppressive  conditions 
in  Europe,  and  the  early  colonies  were  pri 
marily  doors  of  escape  from  various  forms  of 
oppressive  interference  with  religious  faith, 
political  conviction  or  individual  activity. 

The  triumph  of  the  Puritan  party  in  Eng 
land  and  the  establishment  of  the  Common 
wealth  sent  to  Virginia,  between  1640  and 
1660,  a  small  army  of  men  and  women  who 
were  loyal  to  the  monarchy,  many  of  whom 
were  of  the  Cavalier  class.  On  the  stones 
which  mark  the  graves  in  the  ancient  church 
yard  in  Williamsburgh,  many  old  English 
titles  are  recorded.  These  emigrants  had 
been  landholders  at  home,  and  they  became 
owners  of  great  plantations  in  Virginia,  and 
brought  the  habits  of  English  country  life 
into  the  wilderness.  They  were  men  of 
aristocratic  temper;  they  became  masters  of 
vast  tracts  of  land  cultivated  by  slave  labor; 
they  brought  the  Established  Church  of 

43 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

England  with  them,  and  made  the  parish  the 
unit  of  local  government.  Men  of  this  class, 
isolated  from  one  another  and  managing 
large  estates,  developed  unusual  abilities  as 
organizers  and  leaders,  and  when  the  colonists 
threw  off  allegiance  to  the  British  Crown,  they 
furnished  many  of  the  foremost  leaders  of 
the  movement.  From  this  class  came  Wash 
ington,  Madison,  Marshall. 

The  second  settlement  of  Englishmen  in 
North  America  was  made  at  Plymouth  in 
1620  by  the  Pilgrims;  the  Puritans  came 
eight  years  later  and  settled  on  the  same  coast 
fifty  miles  to  the  north.  There  were  tempera 
mental  differences  between  these  two  groups 
of  settlers  of  the  New  England  colonists,  but 
they  shared  certain  fundamental  convictions, 
they  were  impelled  by  the  same  motives,  and 
were  soon  blended  in  a  common  endeavor  to 
establish  a  new  order  of  society  in  the  New 
World.  The  withdrawal  of  the  English 
Church  from  the  communion  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  was  partly  political  and 
partly  religious.  It  was  an  assertion  of  the 
political  as  well  as  the  religious  independence 

44 


DISCOVERY  AND  EXPLORATION 

of  England  from  foreign  authority.  It  be 
gan  with  a  denial  of  the  supremacy  of  the 
Pope;  it  ended  with  a  rejection  of  his  title 
to  the  headship  of  the  Christian  Church  and 
the  rejection  of  many  of  the  doctrines,  prac 
tices  and  rites  which  had  come  into  the 
Church  since  the  establishment  of  the  Papacy. 
But  this  reassertion  of  the  authority  of  the 
English  Church  against  the  claims  of  the 
Church  of  Rome  did  not  end  with  the  re 
covery  of  religious  independence;  it  became 
a  powerful  movement  for  the  liberation  of  the 
English  mind.  It  did  not  stop  short  of  a 
searching  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  authority 
in  matters  of  religious  belief,  into  the  sound 
ness  of  the  statements  of  faith,  into  the  forms 
of  worship. 

The  decrees  of  the  councils  of  the  church, 
long  accepted  without  question,  and  the  for 
mularies  of  theology  which  had  become,  not 
statements  of  faith,  but  its  foundations,  were 
subjected  to  free  and  rigid  scrutiny.  A 
marvelously  fresh  and  inspiring  translation 
of  the  Bible  put  into  the  hands  of  the  Eng 
lish  people  the  text  of  a  book  of  which  they 

45 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

had  received  only  authoritative  interpreta 
tions,  and  they  were  in  a  position  to  ask  and 
answer  for  themselves  questions  which  went 
to  the  very  foundations  of  the  claims  of  ec 
clesiastical  authority  and  of  the  creeds.  The 
Bible  had,  moreover,  this  great  and  distin 
guishing  quality  among  books  which  claim 
to  be  revelations  of  the  Divine  nature :  it 
was  not  a  body  of  principles,  maxims  and 
regulations ;  it  was  a  revelation  in  terms  of 
history;  it  was  not  a  philosophical  solution 
of  the  problems  of  life,  but  a  disclosure  of  the 
nature  of  the  power  behind  the  universe  as 
that  nature  was  expressed  in  the  experience 
of  the  race.  It  affirmed  the  authority  of 
certain  moral  laws,  and  it  showed  how  those 
laws  had  been  enforced  in  the  experience  of 
many  hundred  years.  And  this  story  of  the 
Divine  unveiling  itself  in  the  souls  of  men 
and  in  the  events  of  history  culminated  in 
the  biography  of  a  Teacher  whose  supreme 
power  resided  neither  in  maxims  nor  in  deeds, 
but  in  a  nature  of  such  divine  purity  and  of  such 
love  for,  and  sympathy  with,  humanity  that 
He  spoke  with  the  authority  of  the  truth  itself. 

46 


DISCOVERY  AND  EXPLORATION 

This  noble  literature  —  sixty-six  books  of 
history,  biography,  prophecy,  poetry,  moral 
teaching,  religious  aspiration,  bound  between 
the  covers  of  a  single  volume  —  spoke  to  the 
awakened  mind  and  heart  of  the  English,  not 
only  with  the  authority  of  religion,  but  with 
the  power  of  great  literature.  The  liberating 
energy  of  a  book  charged  with  vitality  went 
out  of  it  into  the  imagination  and  conscience, 
and  it  became  and  remains  the  most  powerful 
influence  in  the  civilization  of  the  English 
speaking  peoples. 

The  separation  of  the  English  from  the 
Roman  Church  was  inevitably  followed  by  a 
sharp  division  of  parties  within  the  English 
Church.  There  were  those  who  held  that 
the  supremacy  of  the  Pope  having  been  re 
jected,  the  traditions,  the  practices  and  the 
faith  of  the  Roman  Church  should  be  pre 
served  ;  and  there  were  those  who  insisted  on 
a  radical  revision  of  doctrine  and  of  ritual, 
and  that  the  simplicity  of  the  apostolic  age 
should  be  restored.  The  mind  of  the  nation 
was  deeply  stirred;  debate  grew  more  acri 
monious;  differences  of  point  of  view  became 

47 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

more  radical;  the  attempt  to  compel  uni 
formity  of  worship  failed;  the  Protestant 
party  became  more  aggressive;  oppressive 
measures  were  adopted  with  the  usual  re 
sults.  As  time  went  on,  the  differences  be 
came  irreconcilable. 

The  Puritans,  as  the  radical  reformers 
came  to  be  called,  protested  not  only  against 
the  mass  and  the  authority  of  the  priest,  but 
against  vestments,  ritual,  written  prayers, 
altars,  saints'  days,  the  observance  of  Christ 
mas.  It  was  a  struggle  to  the  death,  for  the 
idea  of  religious  toleration  did  not  occur  to 
either  party ;  the  alternative  to  establish 
ment  of  one's  convictions  was  their  total 
abandonment.  The  declaration  of  national 
independence  in  religion  ended  in  the  banish 
ment  or  withdrawal  of  a  large  number  of 
Puritans,  the  civil  war  and  the  downfall  of 
the  Stuart  dynasty,  the  founding  of  powerful 
colonies  beyond  the  sea,  and  contributed 
largely  to  the  impulses  which  brought  on  the 
American  Revolution. 

Puritanism  went  far  before  it  exhausted 
itself.  It  set  itself  against  all  authority  in 

48 


DISCOVERY  AND  EXPLORATION 

religion  except  the  Bible  interpreted  by  the 
individual  conscience,  against  the  conception 
of  the  Church  as  having  any  authority  beyond 
that  of  voluntary  organization,  against  the 
priest  as  clothed  with  any  greater  power 
than  that  of  a  religious  teacher  specially  set 
apart  to  the  work  of  teaching.  It  revolted 
against  forms  of  all  kinds,  although  it  in 
evitably  developed  a  form  of  its  own ;  it 
rejected  art  and  laid  its  ban  on  beauty;  and 
it  finally  attempted  to  organize  a  society  on  a 
religious  basis,  in  which  only  people  who 
subscribed  to  the  Puritan  creed  could  exer 
cise  the  rights  of  citizenship.  It  became  in 
the  end  the  most  radical  expression  of  ex 
treme  individualism. 

But  with  many  limitations  of  vision  and 
much  hardness  of  heart  it  had  deep  sources  of 
strength.  It  insisted  on  purity  of  life  and 
laid  unescapable  and  invigorating  emphasis 
on  character;  it  asserted  the  supremacy  of 
the  law  in  private  and  public  life;  it  taught 
the  reality  of  a  man's  direct  responsibility 
to  God  and  the  authority  of  the  individual 
conscience ;  it  held  education  in  great  re- 
E  49 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

spect,  and  many 'of  its  leaders  were  men  of 
university  training;  it  made  the  Bible  the 
textbook  of  English  civilization;  it  made 
men  strong  because  they  believed  the  divine 
power  was  behind  them;  self-denying  and 
indifferent  to  hardship  because  they  believed 
in  the  supreme  value  of  things  of  the  spirit. 
It  made  them  sober  in  life,  tireless  in  industry, 
and  of  a  sturdy  independence  of  spirit.  Not 
withstanding  its  narrowness  and  intolerance 
in  religion  and  its  rigidity  of  life,  the  spirit  of 
Puritanism  was  the  spirit  of  freedom,  and 
both  in  England  and  in  America  it  was  a 
mighty  force  in  the  struggle  for  liberty.  No 
study  of  American  society  is  intelligent  with 
out  some  understanding  of  the  Puritan  move 
ment  and  spirit.  As  the  head  of  one  of  the 
foremost  American  universities,  Dr.  Nicholas 
Murray  Butler,  has  said:  "Puritanism  built 
New  England,  and  for  nearly  a  hundred  years 
New  England  powerfully  influenced  the 
United  States.  .  .  .  The  fact  must  not  be 
overlooked  that  New  England  Puritanism, 
built  on  the  rock  of  Geneva,  is  the  secure 
theological  and  philosophical  foundation  on 

50 


DISCOVERY  AND  EXPLORATION 

which  all  that  is  distinctive  in  American  life 
and  culture  has  been  built.  .  .  .  This  fact 
explains  much  of  the  narrowness  and  lack  of 
sympathy  with  strange  customs  and  views 
which  one  observes  among  Americans,  and  it 
explains  also  much  of  the  determination  and 
energy  of  the  American  temperament.  De 
votion  to  duty  for  its  own  sake,  and  a  deter 
mination  to  persevere  to  the  end  in  any 
undertaking  simply  because  it  has  been  under 
taken,  are  almost  universal  American  appli 
cations  of  Calvinism." 

The  Pilgrims,  driven  into  exile,  found  a 
refuge  in  Holland ;  a  little  country  with  a 
passion  for  liberty,  and  hospitable  to  men  who 
were  persecuted  for  their  religious  opinions. 
The  struggle  through  which  the  Dutch  had 
passed  in  defense  of  their  country  and  of 
their  faith  had  not  only  developed  a  splendid 
vigor  of  character  in  them,  but  had  given 
them  a  sense  of  leadership  in  the  fight  for 
religious  freedom  in  which  western  Europe 
was  deeply  concerned. 

The  Dutch  were  also  daring  adventurers, 
traders  and  far-seeing  merchants,  and  it  fell 

51 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

to  them  to  found  the  commercial  metropolis 
of  the  New  World  and  to  make  a  notable 
contribution  to  its  citizenship  and  ideals. 
In  1609,  two  years  after  the  founding  of  the 
Virginia  colony,  Henry  Hudson,  an  English 
man  in  the  service  of  the  Dutch  East  India 
Company,  who  had  made  two  attempts  to 
reach  Asia  by  the  way  of  the  Polar  Sea, 
sailed  up  the  river  which  now  bears  his  name 
in  the  endeavor  to  find  the  elusive  Northwest 
Passage,  and  was  disappointed  to  discover 
that  it  was  not  a  waterway  to  the  Far  East. 
Fourteen  years  later,  in  1623,  a  Dutch  colony 
was  planted  on  the  island  which  has  long  been 
known  as  the  city  of  New  York.  The  colo 
nists  were  sturdy  men,  with  a  genius  for 
trade;  they  bought  the  island  from  the 
Indians  for  about  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  dollars,  and  were  soon  engaged  in  a 
profitable  business  in  buying  furs  and  selling 
them  in  Europe.  The  great  trading  companies 
which  not  only  broadened  the  area  of  com 
merce  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries, 
but  were  intrusted  with  governmental  powers, 
had  much  to  do  with  the  early  settlement  of 


DISCOVERY  AND  EXPLORATION 

America,  and  were  especially  influential  in 
the  Dutch  colonies  on  the  Hudson  River. 
A  monopoly  of  trade  in  these  colonies  was 
granted  to  the  New  Netherland  Company, 
which  was  speedily  succeeded  by  the  much 
more  ambitious  West  India  Company,  which  , 
was  clothed  with  almost  sovereign  powers. 
It  named  all  the  public  officers  and  could  re 
move  them,  administered  justice,  built  forts, 
made  treaties,  and  was  required  to  build  and 
keep  a  small  fleet  of  war  vessels  in  commission. 
England  and  Holland  had  a  common  foe 
during  the  early  period  of  exploration  and 
colonization.  Both  had  gone  through  life- 
and-death  struggles  with  Spain ;  which,  until 
her  defeat  by  the  two  rising  Protestant 
nations,  had  been  the  foremost  Power  in 
Europe.  The  enormous  revenues  which  Spain 
received  from  her  colonies  in  Central  and 
South  America  had  supplied  her  with  means 
to  carry  on  the  struggle  against  England  and 
Holland,  and  after  her  efforts  to  subjugate 
both  countries  had  been  defeated,  the  war  was 
transferred  to  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic 
and  became  a  struggle  for  supremacy  in  the 

53 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

New  World.  The  founding  of  colonies  was 
therefore,  so  far  as  these  governments  were 
concerned,  not  only  a  commercial  enterprise, 
but  a  war  measure.  It  is  interesting  to  re 
member  that  the  fight  to  keep  the  control  of 
the  New  World  out  of  Spanish  hands,  begun 
in  the  sixteenth  century,  did  not  reach  its  ulti 
mate  conclusion  until  the  retirement  of  the 
Spanish  from  Cuba  in  1898. 

A  fort  was  constructed  on  the  water  front 
of  the  island  of  Manhattan,  a  modification  of 
the  Indian  name,  a  row  of  log  houses  built, 
and  two  hundred  immigrants  became  the  fore 
runners  of  the  Greater  New  York  of  to-day, 
with  a  population  of  over  four  millions.  Trade 
prospered,  great  estates  were  created  under  a 
system  of  landholding  which  was  essentially 
feudal ;  but  the  political  affairs  of  the  colony 
were  not  well  managed,  and  in  1664  it  passed 
under  English  control. 

One  of  the  main  streams  of  French  immigra 
tion  reached  New  York  and  contributed  very 
attractive  qualities  to  its  social  life.  The 
Huguenots,  the  Protestants  of  France,  al 
though  sorely  persecuted  and  finally  exiled, 

54 


DISCOVERY  AND   EXPLORATION 

did  not  lose  those  qualities  which  have  de 
veloped  in  France  what  Matthew  Arnold 
happily  called  "the  power  of  social  life." 
They  were  men  and  women  of  deep-seated  con 
viction  and  dauntless  courage,  but  they  never 
lost  their  aptitude  for  the  amenities  of  life. 

The  Pennsylvania  colony,  which  was  neigh 
bor  on  the  south  to  the  Dutch  colony,  was 
founded  in  1682  by  William  Penn  and  the  group 
of  people  who  called  themselves  Friends,  and 
were  called  derisively  Quakers.  Their  char 
acteristics  were  simplicity  of  dress  and  speech, 
absolute  toleration  of  opinion,  and  faith  in  the 
equality  of  all  men  and  women  before  the  law. 
The  root  both  of  their  faith  and  practice  was 
the  belief  that  in  every  human  soul  the  Divine 
Spirit  is  present  and  gives  direct  inspiration 
and  guidance.  This  illumination  they  called 
the  Inner  Light.  They  were  persecuted  both 
in  England  and  in  New  England,  and  in  weak 
or  unbalanced  minds  their  faith  naturally 
took  radical  and  sometimes  fantastic  forms  of 
expression;  but  they  were  a  high-minded 
people,  who  hated  war  and  slavery.  Their 
leader  was  one  of  the  most  influential  men  in 

55 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

the  early  history  of  the  country,  and  the  city 
which  bears  his  name  was  one  of  the  centers 
of  intellectual  and  educational  influence  from 
the  beginning.  The  government  was  pater 
nal,  peace  was  made  and  kept  with  the  In 
dians,  and  the  proprietary  system  with  Penn 
as  lord  proprietor  worked  well  throughout  the 
colonial  period.  The  liberal  policy  of  Penn 
secured  a  rapid  increase  in  the  number  of 
colonists,  and  attracted  not  only  people  of 
English  birth,  but  the  vigorous  and  hardy 
Scotch-Irish,  the  Dutch,  the  French  and  the 
Swedes. 

Maryland,  which  lies  next  south  of  Penn 
sylvania,  was  also  organized  under  a  pro 
prietary  government,  —  a  form  of  government 
which  survived  from  feudal  times  in  England, 
under  which  the  overlord  was  a  kind  of 
viceroy  and  was  clothed  with  almost  regal 
powers.  In  this  way  Maryland  was  ruled  for 
sixty  years  by  successive  Lords  Baltimore, 
who,  although  Roman  Catholics,  pursued  a 
policy  of  such  liberality  that  the  colony  was 
for  a  time  the  refuge  of  people  of  widely 
different  creeds.  It  was,  however,  too  early 

56 


DISCOVERY  AND  EXPLORATION 

in  the  education  of  the  colonists  to  maintain 
this  large  and  wise  freedom,  and  the  later 
history  of  Maryland  as  a  colony  was  marred 
by  bitter  strife  for  supremacy  among  the 
different  faiths. 

To  the  south  of  Virginia  lay  the  two  Caro- 
linas.  The  first  settlement  made  in  North 
Carolina  was  by  a  company  of  Virginians;  a 
little  later  a  group  of  English  planters  from 
the  Barbadoes  cast  in  their  fortunes  with 
the  colony.  A  plan  of  government  said  to 
have  been  devised  by  the  English  philosopher, 
John  Locke,  was  tried  in  North  Carolina; 
but  the  settlers,  who  were  of  a  vigorous, 
independent  temper,  refused  to  accept  it, 
and  it  was  abandoned.  In  later  years  the 
population  contained  large  accessions  of  Ger 
mans  and  Scotch-Irish.  The  conditions  of 
life  in  the  colony  long  remained  those  of  the 
frontier ;  there  were  no  cities ;  the  farmers 
and  woodmen  who  laid  the  foundations  of 
the  future  towns  were  men  of  great  independ 
ence  of  spirit,  impatient  of  restraint,  lovers  of 
the  wilderness;  a  hardy,  manly  people  who 
hated  taxes  and  desired  only  to  be  let  alone. 

57 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

The  early  population  of  South  Carolina 
was  also  English,  but  the  revocation  of  the 
Edict  of  Nantes  by  Louis  XIV  in  1685  sent 
a  large  emigration  of  Huguenots  to  this 
colony ;  a  people  of  heroic  temper,  of  whom  it 
has  been  said  that  they  "had  the  virtues  of 
the  English  Puritans  without  their  bigotry." 

Colonial  history  in  America  closed  with  the 
first  movement  of  emigration  from  the  sea 
board  at  the  close  of  the  War  for  Independ 
ence.  The  thirteen  colonies  which  faced  the 
Atlantic  from  New  England  to  the  Carolinas 
were  settled  by  men  of  English,  Dutch, 
French,  blood ;  with  a  mixture  of  Scotch- 
Irish,  German  and  Swedish  blood,  —  vigorous 
races  who  sent  their  most  vigorous,  independ 
ent  and  adventurous  representatives  to  face 
the  perils  and  master  the  difficulties  of  the 
exploration  and  settlement  of  a  new  world. 
They  were  drawn  to  that  world  by  three  or 
four  of  the  major  motives  which  stir  men  to 
undertake  new  enterprises  and  to  risk  the 
"hazards  of  new  fortune."  The  earliest  dis 
coverers  were  one  and  all  seekers  after  a 
westward  way  to  the  Far  East,  and  they  died 

58 


DISCOVERY  AND   EXPLORATION 

in  the  belief  that  they  had  found  the  eastern 
shores  of  Asia.  This  misapprehension  hung 
over  the  mind  of  Europe  for  several  decades ; 
when  it  disappeared  it  was  succeeded  by  other 
illusions,  -  -  that  the  seaboard  rivers  ran  to 
the  westward  sea  and  so  made  navigation  to 
India,  Japan  and  China  possible ;  that  the 
new  countries  were  full  of  cities  of  vast 
wealth  and  the  country  of  inexhaustible 
mines ;  that  there  were  streams  in  the  Far 
West  in  which,  if  a  man  bathed,  his  vanished 
youth  returned. 

These  delusions  were  cherished  chiefly  by 
the  Spanish  explorers  and  settlers ;  the  men 
and  women  who  founded  the  English  colonies 
had  confused  ideas  of  the  conditions  they 
were  to  face,  but  were  urged  on  the  quest  by 
very  different  motives.  The  Puritans  in  New 
England,  the  Friends  in  Pennsylvania,  the 
Catholics  in  Maryland,  the  Huguenots  in 
New  York  and  South  Carolina,  were  exiles 
for  conscience'  sake,  or  were  eager  to  prac 
tice  their  faith  under  freer  conditions.  The 
Dutch  came  to  New  York  to  further  their 
fortunes,  as  did  many  men  in  all  the  colonies. 

59 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

There  were  also  ne'er-do-weels  who  had  ex 
hausted  the  patience  of  their  friends  at  home 
and  were  sent  to  America  with  the  hearty 
good  wishes  of  those  who  were  glad  to  be  rid 
of  them;  and  there  were,  as  in  all  colonies, 
many  restless  and  reckless  spirits  who  hoped 
to  find  in  the  New  World  the  freedom  from 
restraint  which  the  Old  World  imposed  on 
them. 


60 


Ill 

POSSESSING  THE  CONTINENT 

THE  thirteen  English-speaking  colonies  in 
North  America  were,  like  Australia  and  New 
Zealand  to-day,  experiment  stations  in  the 
science  of  government.  They  were  ruled 
from  a  country  three  thousand  miles  distant 
in  space  and  two  months  in  time ;  and,  long 
after  they  had  become  independent,  com 
munication  with  England  was  tedious,  un 
certain  and  perilous.  The  people  of  the 
leading  colonies,  New  England  and  Virginia, 
brought  to  the  New  World  strong  convictions 
with  regard  to  freedom  of  opinion  and  con 
duct  ;  their  presence  in  the  wilderness  was  a 
protest  against  existing  conditions  in  Eng 
land.  They  had  no  common  theory  of  the 
way  in  which  they  should  be  ruled,  but  they 
had  escaped  from  some  form  of  oppression 
or  of  repression ;  the  foundations  of  their 
faith  in  the  old  order  of  things  had  been 

61 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

rudely  shaken.  They  were  shut  off  from 
those  influences  of  daily  association  which  are 
more  powerful  than  law  or  force  in  keeping 
men  together  in  political  or  social  organiza 
tion.  They  were  fighting  for  existence  with 
the  consciousness,  which  deepened  as  time 
went  on,  that  the  home  countries  gave  them 
little  thought,  and  that  their  fortunes  were  in 
their  own  hands. 

The  colonists  had  also  a  keen  sense  of  their 
own  importance ;  they  were  aggressive  in 
temper,  or  they  would  not  have  been  pioneers ; 
they  were  building  new  communities  under 
conditions  which  compelled  them  to  act  in 
dependently,  not  only  of  the  home  govern 
ment,  but  —  for  a  time  at  least  —  of  one 
another.  They  needed  very  skillful  and  sym 
pathetic  direction  from  London  and,  as  a 
rule,  they  were  under  the  management  of 
men  who  had  neither  knowledge  of  the  con 
ditions  nor  that  imagination  which  is  one  of 
the  highest  qualities  of  statesmanship. 

For  this  blindness  the  age  was  largely  re 
sponsible.  The  accepted  idea  of  a  colony 
was  that  it  existed  to  enrich  the  home  country ; 

62 


POSSESSING  THE   CONTINENT 

that  as  little  as  possible  was  to  be  given  to 
it  and  as  much  as  possible  taken  out  of  it. 
The  needs  and  feelings  of  the  colonists  were 
of  no  importance  to  the  distant  government. 
The  policy  of  exploiting  colonies  for  the 
benefit  of  the  home  country  was  axiomatic. 
In  this  way  Spain  dealt  with  all  her  colonies 
in  the  New  World,  taking  from  them  vast 
revenues  and  governing  them  by  royal  favor 
ites,  soldiers  of  fortune,  ruined  noblemen 
and  speculators.  In  this  way  France  ruled 
her  colonies  in  the  north,  treating  the  vast 
tracts  of  country  out  of  which  her  brave  ex 
plorers  and  priests  had  created  a  new  France 
as  a  pawn  in  the  game  of  international  di 
plomacy.  The  policy  of  managing  colonies 
in  their  own  interests  now  pursued  by  Japan 
in  Korea,  by  the  United  States  in  the  Philip 
pines,  and  by  England  in  Egypt  had  not  so 
much  as  dawned  on  the  minds  of  the  men  who 
governed  the  English  colonies  in  America. 

Nor  had  it  occurred  to  them  that  colonial 
ministers  and  governors  ought  to  be  chosen 
for  their  ability  and  knowledge  of  conditions 
rather  than  for  party  services  or  as  an 

63 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

expression  of  royal  favor.  The  royal  gov 
ernors  sent  to  Boston,  New  York,  Jamestown, 
were,  with  some  shining  exceptions,  men  of 
stubborn  will,  dull  imagination  and  a  dis 
position  to  magnify  their  offices.  English 
men  had  thoroughly  learned  the  importance 
of  keeping  the  control  of  revenues  and  ex 
penditures  in  their  own  control,  and  the 
colonial  legislatures  kept  salaries,  taxes  and 
supplies  in  their  own  hands ;  a  practice  which 
set  sharp  limits  to  the  powers  of  the  royal 
governors,  and  kept  both  colonists  and  gov 
ernors  in  a  state  of  chronic  irritation.  The 
royal  governors  were  dependent  on  the  king, 
and  the  colonists  were  wise  enough  to  keep  a 
hold  on  them  by  control  of  the  purse. 

As  time  went  on  the  colonies  increased  in 
population  and  in  self-confidence,  and  their 
commercial  interests  began  to  conflict  with 
those  of  the  mother  country.  They  were 
fast  getting  out  of  tutelage  and  resented  a 
policy  which  treated  them  simply  as  sources 
of  wealth  for  Great  Britain.  At  the  very 
time  when  wise  statesmanship  was  sorely 
needed,  the  management  of  America's  affairs 

64 


POSSESSING  THE  CONTINENT 

fell  into  the  hands  of  a  group  of  politicians  as 
dull  and  provincial  in  imagination  as  they 
were  corrupt  in  political  morals.  George  III 
was  a  man  of  honest  heart,  of  limited  intelli 
gence  and  of  a  stubborn  will.  He  held  a 
high  view  of  his  prerogatives,  regarded  him 
self  as  the  ruler  of  Great  Britain,  and,  in  work 
ing  out  his  theory  of  personal  government, 
was  surrounded  by  pliant  ministers  who  were 
his  servants  rather  than  his  advisers.  It 
ought  to  be  remembered  that  the  king  and 
his  ministers  were  dealing  with  conditions 
which  were  new  in  English  history,  that  there 
were  no  precedents  to  guide  them,  that  the 
policy  pursued  in  America  was  in  entire  har 
mony  with  that  pursued  in  England,  and  that, 
if  foreign  affairs  had  not  forced  themselves 
into  the  foreground,  this  policy  would  prob 
ably  have  led  to  popular  resistance  on  the 
East  as  well  as  the  West  side  of  the  Atlantic. 
The  root  of  the  differences  between  the 
colonists  and  the  government  of  George  III 
was  the  arbitrary  imposition  of  financial 
burdens  on  the  colonists,  and  the  arbitrary 
restriction  of  their  trade  and  industries.  The 
F  65 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

colonists  saw  clearly  that  if  the  king  secured 
control  of  their  finances,  their  independence 
in  the  management  of  their  internal  affairs 
would  be  lost,  and  the  fruits  of  the  long 
struggle  for  liberty  which  had  run  parallel 
with  English  history  would  be  sacrificed.  It 
was  not  a  struggle  to  save  dollars  and  cents ; 
it  was  a  struggle  to  preserve  hard- won  rights. 
It  was  not  then,  nor  did  it  become  after  war 
broke  out,  a  struggle  between  the  colonists 
and  the  English  people ;  it  was  a  fight  between 
the  colonists  and  the  personal  government 
of  the  king.  There  was  widespread  sym 
pathy  in  England  with  the  protests  of  the 
colonists ;  during  the  early  years  of  the  war, 
before  France  joined  forces  with  the  colonists, 
portraits  of  American  generals  hung  in  shop 
windows  in  English  towns;  and  the  most 
eloquent  advocates  of  the  rights  of  English 
men  beyond  the  sea  were  three  or  four  great 
Englishmen  in  the  House  of  Commons.  The 
American  Revolution  was,  in  fact,  a  sequel  to 
the  English  Revolution ;  an  incident  of  tre 
mendous  and  unexpected  significance  in  the 
long  fight  for  popular  government  in  Eng- 


POSSESSING  THE   CONTINENT 

land ;  and  the  colonists  would  have  been 
satisfied  with  a  moiety  of  the  freedom  which 
has  knit  Canada  and  Australia  to  the  British 
Empire. 

The  instinct  of  the  king  warned  him  that 
the  contention  of  the  colonists  struck  at  the 
root  of  his  un-English  theory  of  government, 
and  that  if  he  conceded  the  soundness  of  the 
principle  of  "no  taxation  without  represen 
tation,"  he  would  undermine  the  foundations 
of  his  power.  He  could  carry  on  his  policy  of 
autocratic  rule  only  by  keeping  a  pliant 
majority  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  that 
majority  depended  on  the  command  of  elec 
tions  in  the  "rotten  boroughs"  which  a  hand 
ful  of  voters  represented  in  the  Commons, 
while  growing  cities  were  entirely  without 
voice  in  the  government  of  the  nation.  If 
the  American  principle  had  been  applied  in 
England,  the  king  would  have  lost  his  power 
and  Chatham  might  again  have  been  prime 
minister  and  the  ruler  of  the  empire. 

The  idea  of  separation  from  the  mother 
country  was  in  the  minds  of  only  a  few  far- 
seeing  men  when  the  struggle  began,  but  it 

67 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

was  the  logical  and  inevitable  outcome  of  that 
struggle.  To  the  great  majority  of  leaders 
permanent  separation  was  both  unwelcome 
and  impracticable ;  but  as  the  war  went  on 
it  became  clear  that  the  colonists  must  choose 
between  subjugation  and  independence. 
Their  condition  in  a  struggle  with  a  govern 
ment  of  such  resources  as  the  British  was 
desperate ;  but  they  were  fighting  on  their 
own  ground ;  they  had  able  leaders  and  a 
man  of  great  nature  and  great  military  skill 
at  the  head  of  their  armies ;  they  were  op 
posed  by  a  few  generals  of  ability,  but  for 
the  most  part  the  British  commanders  were 
lacking  in  initiative,  energy  and  flexibility. 
They  underrated  the  fighting  qualities  of 
their  opponents,  and  they  obstinately  refused 
to  adapt  their  methods  and  tactics  to  the 
country  in  which  they  were  an  alien  invading 
foe. 

The  war  ended  with  the  surrender  of  the 
British  army  at  Yorktown  in  Virginia  in  1781, 
though  a  treaty  of  peace  was  not  signed  until 
two  years  later.  The  colonists  had  won  their 
independence,  but  they  owed  ten  million 

68 


POSSESSING  THE   CONTINENT 

dollars  to  creditors  in  France,  Holland  and 
Spain ;  their  debts  to  their  own  people  were 
heavy ;  business  was  prostrated ;  there  was 
no  central  authority  to  levy  and  collect  taxes ; 
it  was  necessary  to  adopt  new  constitutions 
and  organize  new  state  governments.  It  was 
necessary,  in  a  word,  to  reconstruct  the  local 
and  state  governments  and  to  create  some 
form  of  central  government.  During  the 
eight  years  of  war  a  Continental  Congress, 
an  emergency  device,  had  supplied  a  central 
authority  of  a  very  ineffective  and  feeble 
kind.  Articles  of  Confederation,  also  framed 
to  meet  an  emergency,  had  defined  the  powers 
of  this  provisional  body,  which  had  performed 
some  of  the  functions  of  government  but  was 
denied  the  exercise  of  essential  governmental 
powers ;  taxes  and  import  duties  were  left 
in  the  hands  of  the  individual  states;  no  bill 
passed  by  the  Congress  could  become  a  law 
unless  confirmed  by  a  two-thirds  vote  of  the 
states.  The  central  government  had  no  power 
to  coerce  a  state  which  refused  to  contribute 
its  share  toward  meeting  the  expenses  of 
carrying  on  the  government;  and  it  had  no 

69 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

authority  to  represent  the  colonies  in  their 
relations  with  other  governments.  When  the 
treaty  with  England  was  signed,  the  thirteen 
states  were  named  as  the  contracting  powers 
on  the  American  side. 

Those  states  were  now  independent,  not 
only  of  Great  Britain,  of  one  another;  they 
had  stood  together  against  a  common  foe, 
and  when  the  danger  which  united  them  was 
past,  they  were  held  together  loosely  by  their 
common  needs,  by  their  slowly  acquired  habit 
of  acting  together,  and  by  their  keen  practical 
sense. 

The  genius  of  Washington,  which  had  guided 
the  colonists  through  appalling  difficulties, 
led  them  another  step  in  this  journey  towards 
independence.  When  the  army  was  dis 
banded  to  become  incorporated  again  into 
the  citizenship  of  the  country,  as  the  great 
armies  were  received  back  into  the  vocations 
of  peace  at  the  end  of  the  War  between  the 
States,  he  addressed  a  letter  to  the  governors 
of  the  states  pointing  out  the  causes  of  the 
inefficiency  of  the  general  government  during 
the  war,  and  emphasizing  the  needs  which 

70 


POSSESSING  THE   CONTINENT 

must  be  met  in  organizing  a  permanent  central 
authority.  Such  a  government,  he  declared, 
must  be  based  on  an  indissoluble  union  of  the 
states ;  it  must  be  empowered  to  lay  and 
collect  taxes  and  to  provide  for  the  payment 
of  public  debts ;  it  must  have  authority  to 
organize  a  system  under  which  a  citizen 
army  should  be  at  its  command ;  a  militia 
which  could  be  called  upon  to  preserve  order 
and  to  defend  the  country  against  invaders. 
Such  a  central  government,  he  said,  could  be 
secured  only  by  laying  aside  local  prejudices, 
sectional  jealousies  and  mutual  suspicion, 
and  meeting  the  crisis  in  a  spirit  of  concession 
and  of  willingness  to  make  sacrifices  for  the 
sake  of  the  general  safety. 

It  was  a  crisis  hardly  less  serious  than  that 
which  had  brought  on  the  Revolution.  The 
old  colonies  were  thirteen  small  nations, 
largely  ignorant  of  the  temper  and  resources 
of  one  another ;  jealous  of  their  rights ;  un 
accustomed  to  any  concerted  action  except 
that  of  defense.  They  were  called  upon  to 
solve  a  problem  which  the  Greek  states  with 
their  immense  intelligence  did  not  succeed 

71 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

in  solving:  to  preserve  local  autonomy  and 
independence  and  yet  act  as  a  nation  under  a 
central  government.  To  the  solution  of  this 
problem  they  brought  the  habit  of  free  dis 
cussion  of  public  affairs  and  of  the  manage 
ment  of  local  affairs,  the  political  intelli 
gence,  and,  above  all,  the  political  character, 
developed  by  centuries  of  Anglo-Saxon  prac 
tice  of  political  activity;  and  they  had  the 
wise  and  sober  leadership  of  a  group  of  states 
men  who  would  have  made  any  age  memora 
ble.  The  discussion  was  long  and  engrossed 
the  attention  of  the  people  of  the  colonies 
from  the  close  of  the  war  in  1783  to  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution  in  1789.  There 
were  many  conflicting  claims  for  territory 
to  be  adjusted ;  and  these  were  finally  settled 
by  an  ordinance  adopted  in  1787 ;  the  first 
exercise  of  national  sovereignty  by  Congress 
with  the  assent  of  the  people  of  all  the  states, 
and  under  the  provisions  of  which  five  great 
states  in  what  is  now  the  Central  West  were 
added  to  the  original  thirteen.  This  united 
action  was  an  object  lesson  of  immense  im 
portance  to  a  group  of  states  which  were  in 

72 


POSSESSING  THE   CONTINENT 

danger  of  drifting  into  anarchy,  if  not  of  civil 
war. 

In  the  Constitutional  Convention  which 
met  later  in  the  same  year,  there  were  fifty- 
five  members,  of  whom  thirty-two  were  men 
of  college  training,  and  many  of  these  had 
been  diligent  students  of  the  science  of  govern 
ment.  Four  had  conspicuously  served  the 
country  and  brought  to  the  deliberations  of 
the  Convention  wide  experience,  exact  knowl 
edge  of  existing  conditions,  and  ardent  de 
votion  to  the  interests  of  the  new  nation: 
Washington,  the  foremost  leader  in  war  and 
a  man  of  great  and  solid  qualities  of  judgment ; 
Benjamin  Franklin,  the  personification,  in 
his  eighty-second  year,  of  the  practical  sagac 
ity  and  genius  of  the  American ;  Madison, 
an  expert  in  political  knowledge,  an  ad 
mirable  debater,  of  a  capacious  and  luminous 
intelligence;  and  Hamilton,  the  most  bril 
liant  and  fascinating  figure  of  the  Revolu 
tionary  period,  who  was  later  to  develop  an 
extraordinary  and  sorely  needed  genius  for 
finance. 

After  four  months  of  earnest  and  often 
73 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

passionate  discussion,  the  Convention  pre 
sented  a  draft  of  a  proposed  constitution  to 
the  country,  and  the  discussion  was  trans 
ferred  from  the  Convention  hall  to  the  country 
at  large  and  finally  adopted  by  all  the  states 
in  1789. 

Mr.  James  Bryce,  whose  "American  Com 
monwealth"  holds  the  first  place  among  text 
books  on  the  American  political  system,  has 
said  that  "it  ranks  above  every  other  written 
constitution  for  the  intrinsic  excellence  of  its 
scheme,  its  adaptation  to  the  circumstances 
of  the  people,  the  simplicity,  brevity  and 
precision  of  its  language,  its  judicious  mixture 
of  definiteness  in  principle  with  elasticity  in 
detail."  The  wisdom  of  its  framers  was 
strikingly  shown  in  making  it  a  statement  of 
principles  and  not  a  body  of  regulations. 
This  feature  has  made  it  a  vital  and  adapta 
ble  rule  of  political  action  instead  of  a  mass 
of  regulations  which,  in  the  nature  of  things, 
must  always  be  largely  temporary  in  their 
application.  It  has  been  the  chief  function 
of  the  Supreme  Court  which  it  created,  to 
interpret  its  provisions  and  to  apply  them  to 

74 


POSSESSING  THE   CONTINENT 

changing  conditions.  The  seventeen  amend 
ments  which  have  been  adopted  since  1789 
have  supplemented  rather  than  modified  it. 

This  constitution  offered  a  solution  of  the 
problem  of  combining  local  self-government 
with  strong,  effective  central  government, 
which  may  be  regarded  as  the  most  important 
American  contribution  to  the  science  of  gov 
ernment.  It  created  a  powerful  nation,  and 
it  preserved  local  autonomy ;  it  combined 
the  New  England  town  meeting,  the  most 
elementary  and  radical  form  of  democracy, 
with  an  effective  national  authority.  The 
Greeks  failed  to  take  the  step  which  might 
have  preserved  the  practical  independence 
of  their  brilliant  cities  without  laying  the 
country  open  to  the  foes  who  eventually 
destroyed  her.  The  American  colonies  kept 
their  autonomy  and  merged  themselves  in  a 
nation  by  creating  a  permanent  federation 
on  a  basis  of  local  representation.  They  sub 
stituted  for  the  earlier  processes  of  absorp 
tion,  or  aggregation  by  conquest,  unity  of 
action  through  a  representative  government. 

"Complete  independence  in  local  affairs," 
75 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

writes  the  author  of  "American  Political 
Ideas,"  "when  combined  with  adequate  rep 
resentation  in  the  Federal  council,  has  ef 
fected  such  a  cohesion  of  interests  through 
out  the  nation  as  no  central  government, 
however  cunningly  devised,  could  ever  have 
secured." 

Under  this  system  a  government  framed 
to  conduct  the  affairs  of  four  millions  of 
people  living  along  the  Atlantic  seaboard  is 
managing  the  affairs  of  nearly  one  hundred 
million  people  and  of  a  territory  of  continental 
magnitude.  There  is  an  undefined  border 
land,  a  "twilight  zone,"  between  the  State 
and  the  nation,  and  there  has  always  been 
and  probably  always  will  be,  a  broad  differ 
ence  of  opinion  respecting  the  division  of 
powers  between  the  States  and  the  nation. 
The  question  of  sovereignty  was  settled  by  a 
decisive  war;  the  nation  is  supreme  and  the 
States  constitute,  not  a  group  of  independent 
sovereignties,  but  an  indissoluble  union  in  a 
nation.  But  the  State  lines  remain  intact; 
the  affairs  of  each  State  are  managed  by  that 
State  without  the  interference  of  the  Federal 

76 


POSSESSING  THE   CONTINENT 

government.  The  wider  action  of  the  Fed 
eral  government  in  recent  years  has  been  due 
to  the  enormous  increase  of  interstate  activi 
ties  of  all  kinds,  and  has  been  necessitated 
by  conditions  with  which  the  States  are  un 
able  to  deal. 

The  first  election  under  the  Constitution 
made  Washington  President  of  the  United 
States,  and  the  new  government  turned 
promptly  to  the  many-sided  and  difficult  work 
of  organizing  the  machinery  through  which 
its  policy  could  be  carried  out  and  its  functions 
discharged.  There  were  no  precedents  to 
guide  the  country,  and  there  were  wide  differ 
ences  of  opinion  to  adjust;  the  various  de 
partments  had  to  be  created  and  set  in  opera 
tion  ;  a  financial  policy  had  to  be  formulated 
with  the  utmost  dispatch,  for  the  finances 
of  the  country  were  in  a  chaotic  condition ; 
the  Federal  courts  had  to  be  constituted; 
and  it  was  necessary  to  make  a  large  number 
of  appointments  for  important  positions. 

The  danger  point  in  the  situation  was  the 
state  of  the  finances;  and  fortunately  the 
nation  had  in  its  service  a  man  of  financial 

77 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

genius.  Hamilton  was  only  thirty-two  years 
of  age,  but  he  brought  to  his  task  technical 
knowledge  of  a  high  order;  and,  above  all, 
though  a  man  of  extraordinary  brilliancy, 
he  had  a  firm  will,  solid  judgment  and  a  gift 
for  mastering  details.  With  astonishing  ra 
pidity,  in  a  series  of  reports  and  bills,  he  laid 
before  Congress  and  the  country  a  scheme 
for  the  creation  of  a  national  bank,  a  mint 
and  a  currency ;  he  funded  the  national  and 
State  debts,  both  foreign  and  domestic ;  and 
he  provided  sufficient  income  by  laying  taxes 
on  the  manufacture  of  spirits  and  duties  on 
imports.  He  proposed  a  plan  for  the  foster 
ing  of  manufactures  by  a  system  of  duties 
which  may  be  regarded  as  the  origin  of  the 
protection  system  in  the  United  States.  For 
Hamilton  had  the  imagination  of  a  states 
man  as  well  as  the  practical  sagacity  of  a 
financier ;  he  saw  not  only  the  need  of  putting 
the  disordered  finances  of  the  nation  on  a 
sound  basis,  but  of  making  provision  for  the 
development  of  its  resources.  Moreover,  his 
plans  had  a  political  as  well  as  a  financial 
purpose;  he  aimed  to  create  a  group  of  men 

78 


POSSESSING  THE   CONTINENT 

in  all  parts  of  the  country  who  should  be 
bound  to  the  new  government  by  their  per 
sonal  interests. 

These  radical  and  far-reaching  measures  at 
once  brought  out  differences  of  opinion  on 
fundamental  constitutional  questions,  and 
these  differences  crystallized  into  the  two 
theories  which  have  divided  Americans  from 
the  beginning  of  their  history;  and  which, 
like  the  centripetal  and  centrifugal  forces, 
have  kept  and  will  keep  a  balance  between 
the  relative  powers  of  the  nation  and  of  the 
states. 

The  Federalists,  under  the  leadership  of 
Hamilton,  held  that  the  Constitution  should 
be  broadly  interpreted  and  that  the  possession 
by  the  Federal  government  of  such  power  as 
was  necessary  to  make  it  effective  and  to 
secure  the  "general  welfare"  was  implied. 
The  Republicans,  led  by  Jefferson,  held  to  a 
strict  construction  of  the  Constitution  and  a 
sharp  limitation  of  the  powers  and  functions 
of  the  Federal  government. 

Other  issues  have  risen  from  time  to  time, 
and  other  parties  have  appeared  in  the  field, 

79 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

but  this  fundamental  issue  has  always  been 
involved.  The  parties  have,  however, 
changed  names.  The  Federal  party  was  suc 
ceeded  by  the  Republican  party,  and  that  in 
turn  may  be  succeeded  by  the  Progressive 
party,  which  has  declared  for  a  still  wider 
extension  of  the  Federal  power;  the  early 
Republicans  have  been  succeeded  by  the 
Democrats,  who  have  strenuously  opposed 
such  an  extension  of  Federal  authority.  The 
tariff  question,  states'  rights,  secession  or  the 
right  of  a  state  to  withdraw  from  the  Union, 
the  improvement  of  rivers  and  harbors,  the 
building  of  canals,  the  reclamation  and  con 
servation  systems,  the  regulation  of  indus 
tries  by  the  national  government,  —  these  and 
many  other  questions  of  policy  have  all  in 
volved  in  one  form  or  another  the  funda 
mental  issue  of  the  relative  powers  of  the 
nation  and  the  States. 

Questions  involving  the  interpretation  of 
the  Constitution  were  presented  to  the  Su 
preme  Court  of  the  United  States  almost  as 
soon  as  the  government  was  organized,  and 
under  the  leadership  of  chief  justice  John 

80 


POSSESSING  THE  CONTINENT 

Marshall,  —  a  man  of  commanding  legal 
ability  and  force  of  mind,  —  the  early  de 
cisions  followed  the  lines  of  broad  construc 
tion.  With  intervals  of  reaction  the  decisions 
of  the  court  have  consistently  sustained  the 
view  of  what  have  been  called  the  "implied 
powers"  of  the  Constitution,  —  the  power  to 
do  whatever  is  necessary  to  make  the  Con 
stitution  effective,  and  to  promote  the  wel 
fare  of  the  people  who  live  under  it. 

The  new  nation  began  its  career  with  a 
population  of  about  four  millions,  living 
chiefly  in  thirteen  states ;  it  has  now  a  pop 
ulation  approximating  one  hundred  millions, 
living  in  forty -eight  states.  It  also  exercises 
sovereignty  over  the  Hawaiian  Islands,  the 
Philippines  and  Porto  Rico.  This  growth 
has  carried  the  center  of  population  from  the 
Atlantic  seaboard  to  a  point  in  the  Central 
West. 

The  vast,  and  at  that  time  unexplored,  tract 
of  country,  west  of  the  Mississippi  River, 
had  been  claimed  by  early  French  explorers, 
who  with  incredible  hardship  and  by  an  al 
most  incredible  physical  endurance,  had 
G  81 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

passed  up  the  valley  of  the  St.  Lawrence, 
crossed  to  the  Great  Lakes,  traversed  the 
vast  stretch  of  prairie  to  the  Mississippi 
River,  and  made  the  first  voyages  down  that 
river  through  the  heart  of  the  continent  to 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  There  is  no  more  in 
spiring  story  of  dauntless  courage  and  heroic 
endurance  than  the  record  of  French  ex 
ploration  in  North  America.  This  tract,  of 
whose  extent  and  resources  all  the  countries 
interested  in  the  settlement  of  the  New  World 
were  ignorant,  passed  later  under  the  control 
of  Spain,  and,  still  later,  into  the  control  of 
France.  The  Emperor  Napoleon,  engaged 
in  a  life-and-death  struggle  with  England,  and 
in  great  need  of  money,  sold  this  territory 
to  the  United  States  in  1803  for  fifteen  million 
dollars;  a  purchase  which  doubled  the  area 
of  the  United  States  and  put  the  nation  in 
control  of  the  waterway  that  made  the  sea 
accessible  to  the  remote  parts  of  half  the 
continent. 

This  new  territory  was  promptly  explored, 
and  the  successful  application  of  steam  power 
to  boats  by  Robert  Fulton  on  the  Hudson 

82 


POSSESSING  THE   CONTINENT 

River  made  the  Mississippi  navigable  at  the 
psychological  moment;  as  the  invention  of 
the  cotton  gin  by  Whitney,  a  New  England 
schoolmaster,  came  into  use  at  the  hour 
when  the  South  was  ready  for  the  enormous 
production  of  cotton  which  gave  a  decisive 
impulse  to  the  industrial  development  of  the 
country. 

At  the  close  of  the  war  for  independence  > 
the  first  great  wave  of  emigration  poured 
through  the  passes  of  the  Alleghany  Moun 
tains  and  spread  over  the  valley  of  the  Ohio, 
and  of  the  chief  eastern  tributaries  of  the 
Mississippi,  and  laid  the  foundations  on  which 
a  group  of  the  most  influential  states  in  the 
Union  —  Ohio,  Indiana,  Michigan,  Illinois, 
Iowa  —  were  soon  organized.  The  balance 
of  political  power  passed,  two  generations 
later,  into  their  hands.  "The  West,"  writes 
Mr.  Bryce  in  the  "American  Commonwealth," 
"is  the  most  American  part  of  America." 
And  the  leading  historian  of  the  West  has 
said  that  "the  American  spirit  —  the  traits 
that  have  come  to  be  recognized  as  the  most 
characteristic  —  was  developed  in  the  new 

83 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

commonwealths  that  sprang  into  life  beyond 
the  seaboard.  In  these  new  western  lands 
Americans  achieved  a  boldness  of  conception 
of  the  country's  destiny  and  democracy. 
The  ideal  of  the  West  was  its  emphasis  upon 
the  worth  and  possibilities  of  the  common 
man,  its  belief  in  the  right  of  every  man  to 
rise  to  the  full  measure  of  his  own  nature 
under  conditions  of  social  mobility." 

The  population  of  the  Central  West  and 
of  the  Mississippi  Valley  increased  with  such 
rapidity  that  in  a  single  generation  the  pop 
ulation  of  one  State  in  that  section  exceeded 
that  of  two  of  the  oldest  seaboard  States.  A 
vast  tract  of  fertile  country  offered  at  nominal 
prices  attracted  enterprising,  restless  and  dis 
satisfied  people  from  the  older  sections,  and 
the  new  country  was  settled  by  men  who 
brought  with  them  love  of  religion  and  of 
education,  and  habits  of  clean  moral  life,  but 
who  were  ready  for  political  and  economic 
experiments  and  disposed  to  create  an  order 
of  society  in  which  there  should  be  the  largest 
liberty  for  individual  activity. 

As  western  Europe  had,  so  to  speak,  pro- 
84 


POSSESSING  THE   CONTINENT 

jected  itself  on  America,  so  Eastern  America 
projected  itself  on  the  West,  and  in  each 
migration,  the  fundamental  character  re 
maining  substantially  unchanged,  there  was 
a  distinct  adaptation  to  new  conditions  and  a 
distinct  detachment  from  the  older  social 
standards.  Virginia  projected  itself  into  Ken 
tucky,  and  New  England  into  the  Central 
West.  In  1817  a  traveler  on  the  national 
road,  the  first  attempt  of  the  Federal  govern 
ment  to  provide  means  of  communication 
between  the  old  and  the  new  parts  of  the 
country,  declared  that  Old  America  seemed 
to  be  breaking  up  and  moving  westward, 
and  graphically  described  the  procession  of 
wagons,  families  and  domestic  animals  flow 
ing  like  a  tide  toward  the  Mississippi  Valley. 
This  great  company  of  people  became  liter 
ally  a  floating  population.  Leaving  the  va 
rious  roads  by  which  they  had  come  into  the 
new  country,  they  were  carried  to  many 
destinations  by  large  and  small  boats  of  many 
kinds,  and  by  rafts  of  logs  or  lumber. 

Arriving    at    his    destination,    the   pioneer 
passed  through  the  same  stages  through  which 

85 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

his  ancestor  from  Europe  had  passed.  He 
cut  the  trees  and  made  a  place  for  a  home; 
he  cut  rings  around  the  trees  near  his  home, 
stopped  the  flow  of  the  sap,  gathered  and 
burned  the  withered  branches  and  planted 
his  first  crop  among  the  stumps;  his  neigh 
bors  helping  him  when  the  house  was  to  be 
raised  or  the  logs  rolled  together  to  be  burned. 
He  purchased  one  hundred  and  sixty  acres  of 
land  for  two  dollars  an  acre,  paid  fifty  cents 
an  acre  in  money,  and  had  three  or  four  years 
in  which  to  pay  the  balance.  The  earlier 
settlers  were  often  men  without  means,  who, 
under  a  credit  system  which  was  both  public 
and  private,  cleared  and  stocked  the  land, 
built  homes,  and  earned  by  the  hardest  kind 
of  work  and  saved  by  the  most  self-denying 
economy  the  money  necessary  to  pay  the 
debts  they  had  incurred.  There  have  prob 
ably  never  been  such  opportunities  of  creat 
ing  wealth  by  hard  work  offered  men  with 
out  means  as  were  open  then,  and  for  many 
years  later,  under  the  homestead  laws,  which 
made  it  the  duty  of  the  Federal  government 
to  sell  public  lands  of  enormous  area  on  such 

86 


POSSESSING  THE   CONTINENT 

easy  terms  as  enabled  the  settlers  to  pay  for 
their  lands  out  of  the  income  yielded  by  the 
lands. 

The  earliest  settler  was  a  backwoodsman, 
but  he  soon  became  or  was  followed  by  the 
pioneer  farmer.  The  charred  land  became 
fertile,  substantial  houses  took  the  place  of 
log  houses,  sawmills  were  built,  orchards 
planted,  cattle  multiplied,  and  little  hamlets 
became  villages,  and  villages  grew  into  cities. 

The  same  process,  with  the  modifications 
introduced  by  slavery,  was  repeated  in  what 
is  sometimes  called  the  Southern  South, — 
the  territory  which  borders  on  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico.  The  lower  valley  of  the  Mississippi 
was  settled,  not  only  by  poor  folk  allured  by 
the  chances  of  fortune  under  easy  conditions, 
but  by  prosperous  planters,  with  trains  of 
slaves,  packs  of  hunting  dogs,  and  the  habits 
and  comforts  of  plantation  life. 

In  1830  there  was  a  vast  unoccupied  country 
west  of  the  Mississippi  River.  The  prairies 
were  a  sea  of  flowers  to  the  great  plains 
whose  aridity  created  what  was  called  on  the 
old  maps  The  Great  American  Desert,  now 

87 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

smiling  with  fertility  as  the  result  of  irrigation. 
The  plains  ended  at  the  foothills  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  and  constituted  a  territory  which 
now  supplies  wheat,  corn  and  cattle  for  the 
consumption  of  a  considerable  part  of  the 
world.  A  large  part  of  this  territory  was 
claimed  by  Spain,  including  what  are  now  the 
states  of  Texas,  California,  Arizona,  Colorado, 
Utah  and  Nevada.  Fur  traders  had  long 
found  their  way  through  the  defiles  of  the 
mountains  to  the  Pacific  coast;  and  trade 
with  the  Indians,  started  by  the  French,  had 
been  carried  on  in  Indian  villages  and  at 
trading  posts  on  the  Great  Lakes  and  the 
upper  Mississippi.  Exploration  went  steadily 
forward,  and  half  a  dozen  trails  pierced  the 
wilderness.  Far-seeing  men  began  to  under 
stand  the  enormous  value  of  this  territory  to 
the  nation,  which  had  reached  the  Mississippi 
River.  The  Floridas  had  been  purchased 
from  Spain,  and  Louisiana  from  France;  se 
rious  boundary  disputes  with  Great  Britain 
had  been  settled  and  had  brought  the  Far 
Northwest  under  American  control.  Texas 
won  its  independence  from  Mexico  and  later 

88 


POSSESSING  THE   CONTINENT 

was  admitted  as  a  state ;  a  war  with  Mexico 
ended  in  a  forced  sale  to  the  United  States  of 
a  territory  now  divided  into  six  states.  Many 
Americans  feel  that  this  war,  brought  on  as 
part  of  the  policy  of  extending  slavery,  is 
the  one  war  waged  by  the  United  States  which 
was  neither  necessary  nor  just;  but  a  glance 
at  the  map  will  show  that  the  territory  for 
which  the  United  States  paid  eighteen  million 
dollars  was  an  integral  part  of  the  national 
domain,  and  must  have  come  sooner  or  later 
under  the  American  flag. 

In  1848,  the  year  in  which  peace  was  made 
with  Mexico,  gold  was  discovered  in  Cali 
fornia,  and  at  the  end  of  twelve  months  there 
were  a  hundred  thousand  gold  seekers  on  the 
ground ;  hardy,  adventurous  or  reckless  men, 
who  had  come  overland  by  the  trails,  across 
the  Isthmus  of  Panama,  or  in  sailing  vessels 
around  Cape  Horn. 

At  the  close  of  the  War  between  the  States, 
the  second  great  movement  westward  carried 
an  active,  eager  population  across  the  plains 
in  long  trains  of  prairie  wagons,  upon  which 
from  time  to  time  the  more  warlike  Indians 

89 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

made  fierce  attacks;  and  during  this  period 
there  were  many  serious  outbreaks  which  re 
quired  the  free  use  of  considerable  bodies  of 
troops  for  the  protection  of  immigrants. 
The  latest  chapter  in  the  story  of  the  futile 
attempt  to  keep  the  aggressive  races  out  of  a 
continent  which  had  been  the  hunting  ground 
of  a  few  hundred  thousand  Indians  was 
written  in  massacre  and  expulsion  in  the  three 
decades  which  followed  the  close  of  the  war ; 
a  struggle  now  happily  ended  by  a  just  and 
generous  policy  toward  the  tribes,  which  still 
number  in  all  probably  two  hundred  thousand. 
Meantime  frontier  towns  were  becoming 
thriving  cities,  mining  camps  permanent 
settlements,  and  vast  farms  were  raising 
wheat  on  an  unprecedented  scale  in  the 
Northwest.  The  first  of  the  transcontinental 
railroads  sent  the  prairie  wagon  to  the  mu 
seum  and  the  frontier  to  the  Pacific  coast. 
The  task  of  settling  the  continent,  begun  at 
Jamestown  on  the  Atlantic  coast  in  1607,  was 
completed  three  centuries  later  on  the  Pacific 
coast;  the  development  of  the  resources  of 
the  continent  has  as  yet  found  no  limit. 

90 


IV 

PROVINCIAL   AMERICA    IN    LITERA 
TURE 

UNLIKE  other  literatures,  American  litera 
ture  had  no  childhood ;  no  morning  stories, 
so  to  speak;  no  local  myths,  traditions, 
marvelous  tales  of  the  beginnings  of  things ; 
no  songs  of  valor  and  adventure  like  the 
"Nibelungenlied,"  the  "Chanson  de  Ro 
land,"  the  tale  of  Beowulf,  the  cycle  of 
Arthurian  legends.  America  is  a  new  coun 
try,  but  the  Americans  are  an  old  people; 
they  began  the  experiment  of  living  together 
not  quite  three  centuries  ago,  in  a  historical 
age,  which  had  not  laid  all  the  old  ghosts  to 
rest  nor  discarded  all  the  ancient  superstitions, 
but  which  wrote  diaries  and  statistical  re 
ports  rather  than  tales  of  love  and  chivalry, 
and  listened  to  sermons,  theological  discus 
sions  and  parliamentary  debates,  rather  than 
to  fairy  stories  and  legends  of  heroes  and 

91 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

gods.  Such  stories  in  some  form  it  would 
doubtless  have  created  in  spite  of  its  heavy 
daily  tasks,  since  the  imagination  never  en 
tirely  resigns  its  activity  to  the  reason  or  to 
the  hands;  but  it  already  possessed  them  in 
two  or  three  literatures.  When  the  American 
colonists  began  to  write  poetry  and  essays 
they  showed  early  familiarity  with  the  brood 
of  celestial  beings  who  had  flitted  from  one 
early  literature  to  another  and  found  shelter 
wherever  men  loved  beauty  or  conceived  of 
truth  as  a  living  thing  and  not  an  abstract 
proposition.  They  were  acquainted  with  the 
gods  and  goddesses  whose  names  starred  Eng 
lish  or  French  poetry ;  and,  later,  when  the 
most  pressing  work  of  settlement  had  been 
done  and  there  was  more  leisure,  they  made 
classical  allusions  with  the  ease  of  the  old- 
time  university-bred  men. 

In  the  days  when  the  little  communities 
in  the  New  World  were  in  the  most  complete 
isolation,  the  children  still  heard  the  ballads 
which  had  formed  a  popular  literature  in 
English  homes  for  many  generations. 
"Chevy  Chase,"  the  most  stirring  of  them  all, 

92 


PROVINCIAL    LITERATURE 

which  the  chivalrous  Sidney  said  moved  him 
like  a  bugle  call,  was  familiar  to  them.  These 
old  songs  of  the  people  were  preserved  and 
passed  on,  as  the  tide  of  settlement  ad 
vanced,  by  word  of  mouth,  and  suffered  many 
changes  in  the  process  of  migration.  In  the 
great  mountain  region  which  extends  from 
North  Carolina  westward  to  Tennessee  and 
Kentucky,  and  includes  parts  of  seven  states, 
a  population  of  nearly  two  million  people 
have  been  isolated,  until  within  the  present 
generation,  from  the  country  about  them,  by 
lack  of  physical  means  of  communication. 
Among  these  mountain  people  the  old  ballads 
brought  over  from  England  in  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  centuries  are  recited  with  slight 
local  adaptations,  and  words  in  use  in  England 
in  Chaucer's  time,  and  long  since  obsolete,  are  in 
common  use.  But  in  the  face  of  great  perils, 
and  under  the  strain  of  great  hardships,  winged 
songs  and  tales  of  fantasy  seemed  like  the 
toys  of  childhood. 

In  New  England  the  earliest  Americans 
were  absorbed  in  an  attempt  to  establish 
what  they  believed  to  be  the  kingdom  of 

93 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

righteousness  in  the  world,  and  to  save  their 
souls  by  shaping  human  law  in  conformity 
with  divine  law ;  in  New  York  they  were  con 
tent  with  the  beauty  and  fertility  of  the  new 
country  to  which  they  had  come  from  Hol 
land,  and  with  moderate  prosperity  and  a 
pleasant  social  life ;  in  Virginia  vast  tracts 
of  fertile  country,  with  access  to  fine  rivers, 
made  the  rapid  cultivation  of  great  estates 
possible,  and  speedily  developed  a  country 
life  with  many  accessories  of  hospitality,  sport 
and  training  in  the  management  of  large 
properties  and  the  handling  of  large  numbers 
of  men. 

Many  of  the  early  settlers  both  North  and 
South  were  men  of  education ;  they  brought 
with  them  memories  of  the  colleges  at  Oxford 
and  Cambridge,  and  the  habits  of  reading 
men.  There  were  collections  of  books  in  the 
homes  of  the  colonists.  William  Brewster, 
one  of  the  foremost  men  in  the  Plymouth 
Colony,  was  a  man  of  gentle  birth  and  breed 
ing  ;  he  was  born  in  a  great  manor  house ; 
he  had  been  a  student  at  Cambridge;  he 
had  held  important  positions  at  the  Court  of 

94 


PROVINCIAL    LITERATURE 

Queen  Elizabeth,  and  he  left  a  collection  of 
several  hundred  volumes ;  a  prominent  mem 
ber  of  the  colony  of  Connecticut  had  a  library 
of  a  thousand  volumes,  practically  every 
volume  of  which  must  have  been  brought 
from  Europe ;  John  Harvard  made  a  bequest 
of  three  hundred  books  to  the  University 
which  bears  his  name.  But  there  was  very 
little  literature  in  the  sense  of  belles-lettres 
in  these  New  England  collections ;  they  were 
largely  made  up  of  theological  treatises  and 
books  on  personal  religion. 

In  Virginia  there  was  a  larger  representa 
tion  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  classics  and, 
later,  of  the  standard  English  writers  of  the 
eighteenth  century ;  but  serious  books,  devoid 
of  literary  quality  but  dealing  at  great  length 
and  in  the  most  dogmatic  spirit  with  the  re 
ligious  interests  and  experiences  of  the  times, 
greatly  predominated.  Calvin's  "Institutes" 
might  stand  neighbor  to  Ovid's  "Metamor 
phoses"  on  the  shelves,  but  was  more  likely 
to  find  itself  between  the  "Practice  of  Piety" 
arid  "Christ's  Combat  with  Satan."  In  a 
few  houses  Bacon's  "Advancement  of  Learn- 

95 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

ing,"  Montaigne's  "Essays"  and  Brown's 
"Religio  Medici"  were  within  reach.  A  copy 
of  Macbeth  was  catalogued  in  Virginia 
in  1699,  but  no  copy  of  Shakespeare's  Plays 
is  known  to  have  existed  in  New  England 
during  the  seventeenth  century,  nor  was  any 
reference  made  to  him  by  an  American  writer 
during  that  century. 

The  English  language,  which  is  now  the 
vernacular  of  two  nations  of  world-wide  ac 
tivities  and  is  heard  in  all  countries,  was  the 
speech  of  a  people  isolated,  in  large  measure, 
from  intimate  European  contact  and  in 
fluence;  it  had  been  used  by  the  foremost 
modern  poet,  who  died  nine  years  after  the 
first  English  settlement  in  America ;  but 
dialects  were  still  spoken  in  its  home,  it  was 
regarded  by  scholars  as  lacking  dignity  and 
precision,  and  Latin  was  still  the  language  of 
scholarship.  This  language  went  to  America 
with  the  earliest  settlers ;  many  of  whom 
were,  as  in  all  migrations,  people  of  great 
energy  but  of  slight  education.  The  splendid 
flowering  of  the  literary  genius  of  the  English 
people  in  the  seventeenth  century  might  have 

96 


PROVINCIAL   LITERATURE 

taken  place  in  Japan,  so  far  as  the  American 
colonists  were  concerned.  Many  of  the  most 
intelligent  among  them  would  have  regarded 
the  plays  of  Shakespeare  and  his  contempo 
raries  and  the  excursions  of  Edmund  Spenser 
into  fairyland  as  either  frivolous  or  corrupting ; 
others  were  too  sternly  fighting  against  hun 
ger  and  the  Indians  to  find  either  interest  or 
profit  in  imaginative  writing.  The  voyage 
across  the  Atlantic  was  long  and  perilous ; 
ships  were  few;  and  the  ocean  was  a  barrier 
between  the  old  and  the  new  worlds  which 
made  the  isolation  of  the  colonies  almost 
complete. 

The  colonists  clung  desperately  to  their 
language  and  made  little  attempt  to  adapt 
it  to  new  conditions.  They  called  a  half- 
naked  Indian  ruler  of  a  little  company  of 
painted  savages,  in  a  little  village  of  wig 
wams  which  could  be  moved  in  a  night,  a 
king  or  an  emperor,  and  an  untutored  Indian 
girl,  in  the  scantiest  garb  and  without  posses 
sions  of  any  kind,  a  princess.  They  gave  the 
birds  which  sang  around  their  little  communi 
ties  the  names  of  the  birds  that  sang  in  Eng- 
H  97 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

lish  lanes  and  meadows ;  and  for  several 
generations  American  poetry  was  full  of 
allusions  to  nightingales;  and  the  "robin  red 
breast,"  the  familiar  companion  of  the  hum 
blest  English  homes,  gave  his  name  to  an 
American  thrush  of  entirely  different  shape 
and  coloring.  Later,  when  they  acquired 
the  sense  of  ownership,  they  became  more 
inventive.  They  borrowed  from  the  Indians 
such  words  as  "sachem,"  "wigwam," 
"potato";  and  they  gave  the  birds  descrip 
tive  names  —  the  bluebird,  the  mocking 
bird,  the  catbird,  the  humming  bird.  In 
the  widely  separated  colonies,  as  in  the  prov 
inces  in  older  countries,  marked  differences 
of  idiom  and  pronunciation  developed  and 
have  persisted  in  modified  form  to  this  day ; 
so  that  it  is  not  difficult  for  a  trained  ear  to 
detect  the  accent  of  localities  in  the  speech  of 
strangers.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  many  of 
those  phrases  which  are  broadly  described  as 
Americanisms  are  survivals  of  old  English 
idioms  fallen  into  disuse  in  the  mother  coun 
try,  but  remembered  by  her  children  beyond 
seas.  Popular  phrases,  and  especially  those 

98 


PROVINCIAL    LITERATURE 

compact  deposits  of  experience  and  obser 
vations  which  we  call  proverbs,  in  which 
Japan  is  so  rich,  were  carried  across  the 
Atlantic  by  the  earliest  settlers  and  started  on 
a  new  career  on  that  advancing  frontier  of 
civilization  which  was  to  move  westward  for 
almost  three  centuries  and  to  produce  pictur 
esque  phrases  and  picturesque  characters  in 
prodigal  profusion. 

The  intellectual  situation  in  the  colonies 
for  a  full  century  after  the  settlements  at 
Jamestown  in  1607  and  in  Plymouth  Bay  in 
1620  may  be  briefly  stated :  communities  of 
men  and  women  from  England,  France  and 
Holland  whose  exceptional  independence, 
energy  and  self-reliance  gave  them  certain 
formative  characteristics  in  common  were 
scattered  along  the  Atlantic  seaboard  over  a 
territory  fifteen  hundred  miles  long;  these 
communities  were  fed  from  time  to  time  by 
other  colonists  of  a  kindred  temper;  they 
were  making  homes  for  themselves  in  a  coun 
try  of  whose  climate  and  resources  they  were 
ignorant ;  they  were  surrounded  by  alert, 
cunning  and  revengeful  foes ;  they  were  com- 

99 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

pelled  to  build  their  government  and  civiliza 
tion  from  the  foundations.  A  vast  majority 
of  these  colonists  spoke  the  English  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  and  a  small  minority  ac 
quired  it  by  force  of  circumstances;  a  small 
number  of  men  of  education  and  of  women  of 
high  breeding  were  in  every  colony,  but  the 
population  was  made  up  largely  of  people  of 
small  means  and  meager  opportunities.  They 
were  isolated  from  the  intellectual  move 
ments  and  interests  of  the  Old  World,  and  en 
grossed  in  practical  work  which  could  be 
neither  evaded  nor  postponed. 

These  people,  full  of  the  energy,  independ 
ence  and  daring  which  had  separated  them 
from  their  fellows  in  the  Old  World  and  in 
spired  them  to  take  "the  hazards  of  new  for 
tune"  in  the  wilderness,  were  not  without 
records  of  their  faith,  of  their  history,  of  their 
race  experiences.  They  came  from  races 
which  had  already  used  in  a  great  way  that 
form  of  expression  which  we  call  literature. 
Separated,  as  they  were,  from  Europe  in  one 
of  its  most  brilliant  periods  of  literary  ex 
pression,  they  brought  with  them  a  heritage 

100 


PROVINCIAL    LITERATURE 

of  great  memories,  of  heroic  histories,  of  those 
creations  of  the  imagination  which  reveal  the 
genius  of  a  race ;  they  were  inspired  by  re 
ligious  or  political  convictions  deep  and  vital 
enough  to  send  them  in  voluntary  exile;  or 
they  were  driven  by  the  love  of  adventure  to 
brave  all  manner  of  perils  on  an  unexplored 
continent.  They  were  not,  therefore,  a  com 
pany  of  materialists  bent  on  trade  or  plunder, 
who  found  in  trade  or  conquest  an  adequate 
expression  of  this  spirit.  For  the  most  part 
they  were  men  and  women  of  exceptional 
energy,  and  the  spiritual  qualities  they 
brought  with  them  had  already  found  expres 
sion  in  literature  as  well  as  in  action. 

Moreover,  they  had  one  classic  of  the 
greatest  vitalizing  power  with  them.  The 
sixty-six  books  of  history,  prophecy,  lyric 
poetry,  symbolic  fiction,  narrative  and  biog 
raphy  which  are  bound  together  in  the  Eng 
lish  Bible  had  been  translated  with  wonderful 
skill  at  the  very  moment  when  the  English 
language  was  a  fountain  of  fresh  and  vital 
speech,  and  had  passed  into  the  hands  of  the 
English  people.  Published  four  years  after 

101 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

the  founding  of  Jamestown,  this  body  of  lit 
erature  which  English-speaking  peoples  call 
"The  Book,"  passed  into  the  hands  of  people 
to  whom  no  other  book  had  reached,  became 
so  embodied  in  the  English  language  that  it 
seems  an  integral  part  of  that  language,  and 
was  so  thoroughly  absorbed  by  the  people  as 
a  whole  that  it  has  largely  shaped  ethical, 
political  and  social  organizations  and  life 
wherever  the  English  language  is  spoken. 

The  air  of  the  age  stimulated  both  the 
imagination  and  the  passion  for  action ;  men 
were  full  of  eager  curiosity  about  the  Far 
East  and  the  Far  West ;  but  the  West  was  so 
new  and  so  strange  they  saw  in  it  the  old 
dreams  of  youth  and  wealth  come  true. 
They  had  been  so  intent  on  discovering  new 
highways  to  the  East  that  for  many  years 
their  chief  interest  was  not  in  exploring  the 
new  land  in  the  Far  West,  but  in  finding  the 
water  courses  through  it  which  would  fur 
nish  channels  for  their  ships ;  and  when,  after 
many  expeditions,  they  were  forced  to  recog 
nize  the  fact  that  they  had  uncovered,  not  an 
island,  but  a  continent,  they  regarded  it  chiefly 


PROVINCIAL    LITERATURE 

as  an  obstacle  to  free  intercourse  with  the 
East.  To  the  dream  of  finding  a  westward 
passage  to  Japan  and  China  succeeded  the 
dream  of  discovering  mines  of  inexhaustible 
wealth  and  fountains  of  youth  in  America. 
The  sailors  who  went  with  the  explorers 
brought  back  tales  which,  after  the  manner 
of  sailors'  tales,  suffered  a  "sea-change  into 
something  rich  and  strange."  The  native 
women  in  the  new  countries  were  described 
as  "wearing  great  plates  of  gold  covering 
their  whole  bodies  like  armor,"  pearls  were 
to  be  found  in  heaps  in  native  houses,  and 
in  these  houses  there  were  columns  of  gold 
and  silver.  Every  returning  voyager  was  ex 
pected  to  report  something  new  and  wonder 
ful,  and  this  expectation  was  rarely  disap 
pointed.  In  the  sixteenth  century  the  imagi 
nation  was  as  daring  as  the  spirit  of  discovery. 
The  contrast  between  the  America  of  im 
agination  and  the  America  of  fact  was  tragic 
in  its  completeness.  The  earliest  colonists 
were  compelled  to  fight  desperately  to  main 
tain  a  foothold  in  the  country.  They  were 
decimated  by  diseases  which  they  did  not 

103 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

know  how  to  avoid  or  to  treat ;  they  suffered 
from  hunger,  cold  and  heat;  they  were 
watched  by  relentless  enemies;  they  were 
neglected  by  those  at  home  who  ought  to 
have  succored  them  in  distress  and  given 
them  the  moral  support  of  sympathy.  This 
failure  was  due,  not  to  lack  of  right  feeling, 
but  to  the  disparity  between  great  schemes 
and  rudimentary  organization.  The  colonists 
were  practically  thrown  on  their  own  re 
sources  ;  a  discipline  which  developed  not 
only  their  capacity  for  taking  care  of  them 
selves,  but  their  independence  of  the  mother 
country. 

When  people  are  building  homes  to  shelter 
themselves  from  the  elements,  digging  and 
planting  to  keep  themselves  from  starvation, 
and  cutting  loopholes  in  their  log  houses  and 
carrying  guns  to  their  work  to  protect  them 
selves  from  sudden  attacks  by  Indians,  they 
have  little  need  of  expression  and  less  op 
portunity  to  develop  it.  Their  vitality  went 
into  their  work  and  their  imagination  into 
their  religion  and  into  the  further  discovery 
of  the  world  around  them.  The  communities 

104 


PROVINCIAL    LITERATURE 

were  separated  by  long  stretches  of  unoc 
cupied  country,  communication  was  slow  and 
dangerous,  and  there  was  no  common  con 
sciousness  to  express.  Under  such  conditions 
the  arts  must  wait  on  life,  and  in  the  New 
World  life  had  many  things  to  do  before  it 
could  make  time  and  room  for  art. 

The  earliest  books  written  in  the  colonies 
were,  therefore,  theological  discussions,  nar 
ratives  of  religious  experience  and  reports  of 
the  country.  They  were  written  for  a  pur 
pose  and  were  as  free  from  the  art  of  writing 
as  the  rude  houses  of  the  country  folk  were 
from  the  spirit  of  architecture.  The  first 
book  written  in  that  part  of  America  which  is 
now  the  United  States  was  an  account  of 
adventures  in  Virginia  by  Captain  John 
Smith,  —  a  man  of  great  courage  and  ability 
and  of  a  bold  and  highly  inventive  imagina 
tion,  whose  habit  of  boasting  has  discredited 
his  really  great  services  to  the  colonists  at 
Jamestown.  As  the  redoubtable  Captain 
grew  older  in  years,  his  adventures  grew  more 
wonderful  in  the  telling,  but  his  report  of 
conditions  in  Virginia  has  historical  value. 

105 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

At  the  end  of  a  century  and  a  half,  common 
grievances  against  the  mother  country  and 
common  perils  at  home  began  to  develop  a 
consciousness  of  common  interests  in  the 
different  colonies.  The  intervening  territory 
had  been  filling  up  with  settlers,  means  of 
communication  had  become  regular,  there 
was  much  more  regular  intercourse,  sug 
gestions  of  cooperation  between  the  colonies 
for  defense  were  in  the  air,  so  to  speak,  and 
a  plan  for  joint  action,  brought  forward  by 
Benjamin  Franklin  on  the  eve  of  what  is 
known  as  the  French  and  Indian  War,  was 
widely  discussed. 

In  that  war,  which  established  English 
rule  in  Canada,  all  North  America  was 
brought  under  English  authority  and  the 
original  colonists  largely  relieved  of  danger 
from  Indians;  several  of  the  colonies  cooper 
ating  in  furnishing  men  and  money.  Fifteen 
years  later  they  were  to  stand  together  in 
the  attempt  to  establish  their  independence 
of  the  British  government.  In  the  mean 
time  they  had  begun  to  develop  that  con 
sciousness  of  common  need  and  experience 

106 


PROVINCIAL   LITERATURE 

which  makes  the  subsoil  of  literature,  and 
the  first  expression  of  this  consciousness  took 
the  form  of  argument,  discussion,  satire. 
The  War  of  the  Revolution  was  preceded  by 
a  war  of  words.  The  grievances  of  the 
colonists,  which  had  been  many  times  laid 
before  the  authorities  in  England,  found 
more  emphatic  and  comprehensive  statement. 
The  colonists  began  to  define  their  position 
for  their  own  guidance  and  to  make  their 
appeal  to  the  enlightened  opinion  of  Europe. 
They  examined  the  grounds  of  their  protests 
more  critically,  strove  tp  formulate  the  prin 
ciples  on  which  they  rested  their  claims,  and 
searched  English  history  for  precedents  for 
their  course.  The  discussion  took  a  wide 
range  and  involved  ultimately  the  funda 
mental  political  principles  which  the  English 
people  had  slowly  worked  out  in  their  struggle 
for  participation  in  government.  Men  of 
ability  came  to  the  front  in  several  colonies. 
Samuel  Adams,  a  man  of  great  energy  of 
character  and  style  in  the  Massachusetts 
colony,  wrote  a  stirring  and  strongly  phrased 
defense  of  the  rights  of  the  colonists  against 

107 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

arbitrary  government  by  the  group  of  irre 
sponsible  ministers  who  surrounded  an  honest 
but  narrow-minded  and  obstinate  king.  As 
time  went  on,  the  feeling  became  passionate ; 
there  was  no  thought  of  independence  as  yet, 
save  among  a  few  radical  leaders,  but  there 
was  a  growing  sense  of  injustice  and  a  grow 
ing  determination  to  secure  for  Englishmen 
beyond  the  sea  the  rights  enjoyed  by  English 
men  at  home. 

Americans  and  Englishmen,  looking  back 
on  that  great  debate  and  on  the  long  struggle 
in  which  it  ended,  now  see  clearly  that  the 
American  Revolution  was  part  of  the  struggle 
for  popular  rights  in  England ;  and  not  until 
other  elements  entered  the  field,  notably  the 
assistance  of  France,  did  the  war  become 
popular  with  the  English  people.  For  many 
years  it  was  a  conflict  between  the  colonists 
and  the  group  of  incompetent  or  corrupt 
politicians  who  formed  what  was  called  the 
King's  Party,  and  that  conflict  was  waged 
as  bitterly  in  the  British  Parliament  as  in 
English  possessions  in  America.  There  was 
a  flood  of  pamphlets  in  the  colonies,  and  there 

108 


PROVINCIAL  LITERATURE 

were  great  speeches  in  Parliament,  where  the 
case  of  the  colonists  was  stated  with  noble 
eloquence  by  a  group  of  the  greatest  states 
men  in  English  history,  notably  by  Lord 
Chatham  and  Charles  James  Fox;  men  of 
the  highest  oratorical  ability  and  of  a  lofty 
patriotism,  whose  fight  for  popular  rights 
involved  a  courage  and  resolute  persistence 
hardly  paralleled  by  that  of  the  colonists 
themselves. 

This  discussion  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic 
rose  to  the  dignity  of  literature ;  and  the  work 
of  John  Adams,  of  James  Otis,  of  Thomas 
Jefferson  —  of  whom  James  Russell  Lowell, 
the  distinguished  poet  and  critic,  said  that  he 
doubted  if  America  had  produced  a  better 
thinker  or  writer — and  of  many  other  men, 
came  to  the  front  in  this  discussion,  which  not 
only  produced  the  first  writing  of  literary 
quality  in  America,  but  developed  a  sense  of 
common  danger  and  common  conviction 
among  the  colonists  and  prepared  the  minds 
of  men  for  united  action  when  the  crisis  came. 
Deep  feeling  and  passionate  conviction  gave 
these  pamphlets  and  addresses  and  the 

109 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

speeches  of  men  like  Patrick  Henry,  the 
Virginian  who  struck  off  in  the  heat  of  ora 
tory  some  phrases  that  became  watchwords 
in  the  struggle,  —  "if  this  be  treason,  make 
the  most  of  it,"  "as  for  me,  give  me  liberty  or 
give  me  death,"  —  an  eloquence  which  in 
vested  them  with  those  qualities  of  beauty  of 
phrase  or  of  authority  of  thought  which  we 
associate  with  literature.  Both  discussions 
and  speeches  had  immediate  ends  in  view, 
but  these  ends  were  served  by  an  appeal  to 
principles  so  fundamental  in  the  develop 
ment  of  society  that  what  was  fashioned  for 
the  need  of  the  moment  took  on  the  dignity 
and  significance  of  things  that  endure  for  all 
time. 

At  the  end  of  the  war  the  colonists  found 
themselves  facing  perils  almost  as  great  as 
those  through  which  they  had  passed.  They 
had  secured  independence,  but  they  were 
without  a  government.  It  was  then  that  the 
long  discipline  and  training  of  a  people  who 
had  been  in  the  habit  of  governing  them 
selves  in  local  affairs  showed  their  organizing 
power ;  during  the  critical  years  between  1783 

110 


PROVINCIAL  LITERATURE 

and  1789  the  colonies  went  on  with  their 
work  and  life  by  virtue  of  the  political  char 
acter  and  habits  of  the  people.  The  central 
authority,  created  by  the  temporary  expe 
dient  of  Articles  of  Confederation,  was  so  de 
void  of  power  either  of  initiative  or  of  regu 
lation,  that  it  maintained  but  a  shadow  of 
authority.  There  was  no  basis  for  general 
credit,  no  common  currency,  no  uniformity 
of  law;  the  colonies  had  still  a  very  imper 
fect  knowledge  of  one  another,  their  differ 
ences  of  religious  faith  and  practice  and  of 
social  custom  were  many,  there  were  bitter 
local  jealousies  and  serious  disputes  with  re 
gard  to  boundaries.  More  immediately  im 
portant  and  perilous  were  the  wide  and  deep 
differences  of  opinion  as  to  what  kind  of 
government  should  be  created :  a  govern 
ment  of  restricted  powers,  which  should  deal 
with  the  general  interests  of  the  colonies  under 
limitations  so  many  and  so  Jgreat  as  to  make 
it  little  more  than  an  advisory  body;  or  a 
government  invested  with  power  to  make 
laws  binding  on  all  citizens  and  to  enforce 
them.  The  fundamental  question,  the  full 

111 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

scope  of  which  only  a  few  men  saw  at  the 
time,  was :  shall  there  be  confederation  of 
sovereign  states  or  a  nation  ?  That  question 
was  not  to  be  settled  until  after  another  long 
debate  and  another  and  more  destructive  war. 
The  country  became  a  vast  debating  society, 
and  the  Constitution  which  was  finally  framed 
was  fashioned  in  the  fire  of  that  long  and 
earnest  discussion.  The  spectacle  of  a  widely 
settled  population,  organized  under  fully 
developed  local  governments  and  of  mature 
and  strongly  held  political  convictions,  dis 
cussing  the  nature  and  scope  of  the  govern 
ment  under  which  they  should  live,  was  new 
in  the  history  of  the  world  and  was  the  mental 
preparation  for  the  making  of  a  nation.  In 
that  discussion  many  of  the  ablest  men  in 
the  country  came  to  the  front.  Some  of 
them,  like  Hamilton,  had  made  reputations 
in  military  service;  others,  like  Jefferson, 
showed  themselves  masters  of  the  history 
and  principles  of  government.  Among  those 
who  advocated  a  strong  central  government, 
none  was  more  influential  than  Alexander 
Hamilton,  the  most  brilliant  and  engaging 


PROVINCIAL  LITERATURE 

personality  of  the  period,  the  intimate  friend 
of  Washington ;  a  man  who  showed,  later, 
genius  of  a  high  order  as  a  financier.  His 
contributions  to  this  momentous  debate,  with 
those  of  Madison,  who  became  the  third 
President  of  the  United  States,  appeared  in 
the  newspapers  of  the  day  and  probably 
exerted  more  influence  on  public  opinion 
than  any  other  statements  of  the  case ;  and 
The  Federalist,  the  title  of  the  volume  in 
which  they  were  subsequently  issued,  is  one 
of  the  foremost  American  political  classics. 
The  leading  spirit  of  the  party  which  urged  a 
government  of  rigidly  restricted  powers  was 
Thomas  Jefferson,  who  succeeded  Washing 
ton  in  the  Presidency ;  a  man  of  broad  general 
education,  of  cultivated  tastes  and  of  radi 
cally  Democratic  principles ;  a  student  of 
French  history  and  literature,  sympathetic 
with  the  popular  movement  in  that  country. 
Jefferson  was  a  man  of  vision  rather  than  a 
practical  statesman ;  he  was  the  founder  of 
the  University  of  Virginia,  one  of  the  fore 
most  institutions  of  the  highest  class  in  the 
country.  He  had  great  charm  of  manner, 

113 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

both  in  person  and  in  speech ;  and  the  name 
of  no  one  of  the  founders  of  the  government 
is  more  frequently  heard  than  his  in  the 
political  discussions  of  to-day. 

These  two  long  discussions  disseminated 
political  ideas  in  all  the  colonies  and  formed 
in  Americans  that  habit  of  political  debate 
which  very  largely  gives  popular  government 
its  educational  quality;  and,  while  neither 
pamphlets  nor  speeches  belong  to  belles- 
lettres,  they  expressed  for  the  first  time  what 
was  to  become  the  national  consciousness  and 
are  the  earliest  American  writings  of  per 
manent  interest  as  literature. 

The  United  States  created  by  the  adoption 
of  the  Constitution  in  1879  began  its  career 
with  a  population  of  about  four  million  people, 
scattered  through  thirteen  colonies.  A  nation 
had  been  called  into  existence,  but  in  name 
only.  There  was  a  small  group  of  men  who 
distinctly  foresaw  the  future  development  of 
the  national  idea  and  of  the  natural  resources, 
but  the  vast  majority  of  the  subjects  of  the 
new  government  were  still  in  what  may  be 
called  the  colonial  condition  of  mind;  they 

114 


PROVINCIAL  LITERATURE 

had  severed  political  connections  with  the 
Old  World,  but  they  were  still  dependent  on 
that  world  for  literature,  for  art,  for  music, 
for  social  tradition,  for  fashions  of  dress. 
Their  tastes  and  interests  were  provincial 
and  were  to  remain  provincial  for  a  genera 
tion.  Save  in  the  form  of  orations,  political 
discussion  and  state  papers,  they  were  with 
out  a  literature.  They  had,  however,  pro 
duced  two  writers  who  were,  to  quote  Matthew 
Arnold's  happy  phrase  about  Emerson,  — 
"friends  of  the  spirit."  Jonathan  Edwards, 
a  preacher  of  terrifying  power  who  turned 
the  white  flame  of  divine  purity  into  a  con 
suming  fire  for  the  evil,  was  a  man  as  un 
like  some  of  the  doctrines  he  preached  as  the 
practices  of  some  people  who  call  themselves 
Christians  is  unlike  the  religion  they  profess. 
He  was  at  heart  a  mystic,  and,  like  all  mystics, 
he  lived  in  devout  communion  with  spiritual 
thoughts  and  beings.  In  an  age  in  which  the 
sense  of  sin  was  abnormally  developed,  the 
sensitive  imagination  of  this  teacher  of  the 
immutable  will  of  God  as  the  supreme  truth 
known  to  men  pictured  with  startling  vivid- 

115 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

ness  the  fate  of  those  who  refused  to  accept 
that  will.  His  mind  was,  however,  emi 
nently  philosophical  and  his  "Freedom  of  the 
Will,"  written  twenty  years  before  the  Revolu 
tion,  has  been  called  "the  one  large  contribu 
tion  which  America  has  made  to  the  deeper 
philosophic  thought  of  the  world."  In  grasp 
of  thought  and  power  of  logic  that  statement 
still  remains  true,  although  America  has  since 
produced  thinkers  of  greater  subtlety  and 
originality. 

Edwards  was  a  man  of  the  New  England 
type ;  ardently  religious  and  as  ardently  con 
vinced  that  the  truth  of  religion  could  be  finally 
and  dogmatically  stated  in  philosophic  terms. 
John  Woolman,  on  the  other  hand,  was  a  man 
of  the  Middle  Colonies,  of  humble  origin  and 
of  slight  education.  He  was  a  member  of 
the  Community  of  Friends,  who  had  come 
into  existence  in  England  as  a  protest  against 
what  they  called  worldliness,  who  held  that 
the  human  spirit  is  in  communion  with  the 
divine  spirit  without  the  instrumentality  of 
priests  or  temples  or  church  organization. 
They  listened  for  the  Inner  Voice  which 

116 


PROVINCIAL  LITERATURE 

speaks  in  every  man's  soul ;  they  were  mystics 
in  religion  and  individualists  in  society.  They 
dressed  soberly,  and  were  notable  for  honesty 
in  their  dealings,  though  by  no  means  lacking 
in  shrewdness ;  they  were  simple  in  manner 
and  speech ;  and  they  held  war  in  abhorrence. 
It  was  among  them  that  the  first  organized 
opposition  to  the  institution  of  slavery,  then 
generally  established  in  the  colonies,  had  its 
rise. 

Of  this  company  of  unworldly  people  de 
voted  to  the  life  of  the  spirit,  John  Woolman 
was  a  notable  type.  He  was  also  an  example 
of  what  the  human  spirit,  purified  and  re 
fined  by  unselfish  love  of  men,  can  accom 
plish.  He  was  an  illiterate  tailor,  but  he 
wrote  in  a  style  of  rare  purity  and  grace; 
he  hated  slavery,  but  he  loved  the  slave 
owner.  He  was  studious  by  nature  and  gave 
his  leisure  hours  to  books ;  and  he  was  much 
given  to  long  walks  and  to  meditation. 
"I  found  it  safest,"  he  said,  "for  me  to  live 
in  private  and  keep  these  things  sealed  up  in 
my  own  breast."  His  "Journal,"  begun  in 
his  early  maturity  and  continued  until  his 

117 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

death  in  1772,  is  a  record  of  his  inner  life,  of 
his  thoughts  on  slavery,  and  of  his  prophetic 
views  of  the  labor  question.  It  is  in  no  sense 
a  great  piece  of  literature,  but  it  has  the 
quality  of  literature  and  has  found  very  ap 
preciative  recognition  among  lovers  of  good 
writing  in  England.  Franklin's  "Auto 
biography,"  although  written  in  part  before 
the  Revolution,  was  not  published  until  the 
year  following  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution. 
During  the  three  or  four  decades  that 
followed  the  winning  of  independence,  two 
marked  tendencies  developed :  a  pronounced 
antagonism  to  everything  English,  and  a 
pronounced  admiration  for  everything  Ameri 
can.  Patriotism  was  as  much  a  matter  of  hat 
ing  as  of  loving.  The  hardships,  perils  and  vic 
tories  of  the  Revolution  were  still  fresh  in  the 
minds  of  the  people,  and  the  men  who  had  en 
dured  and  triumphed  were  still  among  them. 
Intercourse  with  the  Old  World  was  still  slow, 
hazardous  and  expensive;  the  legacy  of  an 
tagonism  to  England  bequeathed  by  the 
Revolution  had  been  augmented  by  unfor 
tunate  incidents  of  the  second  war  with  that 

118 


PROVINCIAL  LITERATURE 

country  which  began  in  1812;  there  was  a 
widespread  habit  of  glorifying  the  men  who 
had  part  in  the  first  struggle.  A  popular 
mythology  of  heroic  proportions  sprang  up, 
and  men  who  had  never  been  conspicuous  to 
their  comrades  in  the  field  took  on  heroic 
proportion  in  the  piping  times  of  peace,  es 
pecially  if  they  happened  to  be  candidates 
for  public  office.  America  was  still  provincial, 
although  it  was  on  the  eve  of  becoming  sec 
tional.  It  was  still  isolated  from  the  Old 
World,  although  it  was  on  the  eve  of  reknitting 
the  broken  ties  of  friendly  intercourse  and 
coming  again  into  relations  with  it. 

It  is  an  interesting  and  significant  fact  that 
this  reestablishment  of  severed  relations  came 
largely  through  a  group  of  men  of  letters  and 
of  scholars.  There  had  been  vigorous  writing 
in  America,  but  it  had  been  so  far  the  liter 
ature  of  information,  of  theology,  of  politics. 
The  literature  of  imagination,  of  humor,  of 
sentiment,  began  in  New  York,  the  chief  city 
of  the  most  cosmopolitan  of  the  old  colonies 
now  become  States,  and  the  future  metropolis 
of  the  nation.  It  was  then  a  pleasant  city  of 

119 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

about  twenty-five  thousand  inhabitants.  It 
lay  between  two  rivers,  and  it  had  a  spacious 
and  beautiful  harbor.  One  of  these  rivers, 
the  Hudson,  had  not  only  great  scenic,  but, 
for  its  time,  great  historic,  interest.  The 
men  and  women  who  originally  settled  it 
came  from  Holland;  they  were  followed  in 
due  time  by  a  large  migration  from  England ; 
and,  still  later,  French  Huguenots,  expelled 
from  their  own  country  on  account  of  their 
faith,  came  in  large  numbers  and  settled  in 
New  York  and  the  country  which  lies  east  of 
it  on  Long  Island  Sound.  Other  races  were 
represented  in  smaller  groups,  and  when  the 
colonies  became  a  nation,  eighteen  or  twenty 
languages  were  spoken  in  New  York.  Its 
citizenship  was  less  distinct  in  type  than  that 
of  New  England  or  of  the  Southern  Colonies. 
It  was  less  serious  in  temper  than  the  colonies 
to  the  east  of  it  and  more  cosmopolitan  than 
those  to  the  south,  which  were  largely  agri 
cultural  in  occupation.  It  was  a  commercial 
city,  and,  although  it  had  suffered  greatly 
during  the  war,  it  was  not  so  sharply  separated 
in  feeling  from  the  mother  country. 

120 


PROVINCIAL  LITERATURE 

In  this  city  which  has  always  held  its  gates 
wide  open  to  the  world,  Washington  Irving 
was  born  in  the  year  in  which  the  British 
troops  reembarked  for  England.  He  declined 
to  go  to  college,  read  law  and  literature,  and 
made  his  first  visit  to  Europe  in  1804.  He 
was  a  born  loiterer  and  observer,  and  he  was 
the  first  American  after  the  separation  to  see 
England  with  the  old-time  affection  and 
under  the  spell  of  the  old-time  associations. 
Two  years  later  he  returned  to  his  native  city 
to  join  a  group  of  high-spirited  and  vivacious 
young  men  of  satirical  temper  in  the  writing 
of  a  series  of  witty  comments  on  men  and 
manners  in  the  metropolis  after  the  manner 
which  Addison  and  Steele  had  made  familiar 
in  the  Spectator.  These  papers  revealed 
Irving's  humor,  his  sentiment  and  his  felicity 
of  style.  They  were  followed  by  the  publica 
tion  of  a  book  of  unique  quality  in  American 
writing,  a  "History  of  New  York,"  broadly 
burlesquing  the  incidents  of  its  early  history, 
and  the  characters  of  its  early  men.  The 
narrative  had  the  manner  of  serious  history, 
but  it  was  a  piece  of  good-natured  but  auda- 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

cious  fun-making.  Published  in  1809,  it  made 
a  great  sensation  locally,  but  its  readers  did 
not  know  that  it  marked  the  beginning  of 
American  literature.  It  was  the  first  book  of 
quality  and  feeling  written  by  an  American. 
It  reminded  Walter  Scott  of  Dean  Swift,  but 
Irving  belonged  to  the  school  of  Addison  and 
Goldsmith. 

In  1815  he  went  to  Europe  a  second  time 
and  did  not  return  to  New  York  until  1832 ; 
in  the  meantime  he  had  written  several 
volumes  of  essays  and  sketches,  —  a  "Life  of 
Columbus,"  charming  studies  of  the  Alham- 
bra,  and  the  "Conquest  of  Granada."  None 
of  his  books  was  of  the  first  rank,  but  all  had 
the  quality  of  literature,  and  the  dates  of 
their  appearance  and  their  influence  on  Ameri 
can  Letters  give  them  permanent  importance. 
In  two  volumes  of  delightful  sketches,  "Brace- 
bridge  Hall"  and  the  "Sketch  Book,"  Ameri 
cans  came  again  under  the  spell  of  things  and 
places  dear  to  their  ancestors.  Westminster 
Abbey  rose  before  them  again  in  all  the 
majesty  of  its  ancient  architecture  and  of  its 
august  memories ;  they  heard  again  the  peal- 


PROVINCIAL  LITERATURE 

ing  of  bells  from  the  venerable  churches  in 
which  their  ancestors  had  worshiped ;  they 
saw  the  home  of  Shakespeare ;  they  enjoyed 
again  the  comforts  of  old  inns  and  shared 
the  hospitality  of  old  homes. 

Under  the  spell  of  Irving's  charming  power 
of  description,  an  England  that  had  largely 
faded  from  the  memory  of  men  and  women 
in  the  New  World  became  once  more  the 
mother  country  of  their  language,  their  re 
ligion,  of  their  political  ideals  and  social  habits. 

Irving  did  more  than  this :  in  the  "Legend 
of  Sleepy  Hollow"  and  in  "Rip  Van  Winkle" 
he  gave  to  Americans  two  characteristic 
legends ;  he  prepared  the  way  for  American 
fiction ;  and  he  furnished  a  convincing  answer 
to  Sidney  Smith's  question,  "Who  reads  an 
American  book?"  For  these  books  found 
many  lovers  in  the  Old  World,  and  years 
afterwards  Thackeray  called  Irving  "The 
First  Ambassador  Whom  the  New  World  of 
Letters  sent  to  the  Old." 

This  reknitting  of  the  old  ties  was  also  one 
of  the  services  rendered  by  Longfellow,  a 
man  of  the  best  New  England  stock  and 

123 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

education,  to  whom  the  opportunity  of  travel 
and  study  in  Europe  came  early ;  who  became 
an  accomplished  linguist  and  returned  to 
teach  the  modern  languages  in  Harvard  Uni 
versity  and  to  become  the  most  popular  of 
American  poets.  He  was  of  a  gentle  and 
lovable  nature,  of  a  quiet  charm  of  personality. 
He  was  a  scholar  ripened  into  a  man  of  culture 
by  wide  acquaintance  with  art  in  various 
forms.  Longfellow's  sensitive  imagination 
and  historic  sense  made  him  one  of  the  earliest 
of  the  many  pilgrims  who  have  gone  back 
from  the  New  World  to  the  places  and  build 
ings  associated  with  the  earlier  story  of  the 
races  from  which  Americans  are  descended. 
His  brother  once  said  of  him  that  the  key  to 
his  character  was  sympathy.  This  quality, 
tempered  by  knowledge  and  reenforced  by  a 
pictorial  imagination,  made  him  an  interpreter 
and  a  translator.  He  felt  deeply  the  charm 
of  ancient  places,  the  fascination  of  old  stories, 
the  appeal  of  the  self-denials,  the  romances 
and  the  heroisms  of  long  ago;  and  in  his  verse 
Nuremberg,  Prague,  Salerno,  Sicily,  Switzer 
land,  serve  as  backgrounds  for  happily  retold 


PROVINCIAL  LITERATURE 

legend,  history  or  romance.  Through  the 
temperament  of  this  poet  of  the  affections 
Europe  became  again  to  many  estranged 
Americans  an  ancestral  home  rich  in  the  treas 
ures  of  art  and  of  memory. 

Longfellow  also  drew  freely  on  the  tradi 
tions  of  his  own  country,  and  two  of  his  most 
familiar  narrative  poems,  "Evangeline,"  a 
story  of  the  expulsion  of  the  French  from 
Acadia,  in  lower  Canada,  and  their  settle 
ment  in  the  extreme  south,  and  "Hiawatha," 
an  Indian  legend  of  great  beauty,  have  taken 
their  places  beside  Irving's  "Rip  Van  Winkle" 
and  "Legend  of  Sleepy  Hollow"  as  the  most 
original  legends  that  have  their  roots  in 
American  soil.  He  was  the  poet  of  the 
domestic  affections  and  of  childhood,  and 
many  of  his  short  pieces  are  known  by  the 
school  children  of  America.  He  was  a  gentle 
moralist,  and,  although  lacking  the  highest 
gifts  of  inspiration,  he  put  a  brave  and  gentle 
philosophy  of  life  into  a  few  poems  which 
have  become  an  informal  creed  of  faith  and 
endeavor  among  all  classes  of  people.  His 
translation  of  Dante's  "Divine  Comedy"  was 

125 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

a  labor  of  love  as  well  as  scholarly  rendering 
of  notable  fidelity  to  the  condensed  and 
closely  knit  style  of  the  greatest  literary  work 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  Longfellow's  ease  in 
giving  happy  expression  to  the  common  hu 
man  experiences  and  aspiration  has,  since  his 
death,  somewhat  obscured  his  real  poetic 
gifts,  and  many  critics  have  been  content  to 
give  him  place  only  among  the  popular  poets ; 
but  this  will  not  be  his  final  position.  His 
ballads  and  many  of  his  sonnets  reveal  a 
poetic  talent  of  a  high  order.  Nor  will  it  be 
forgotten  that  he  was  one  of  the  little  group 
of  writers  and  scholars  who  put  an  end  to  the 
provincial  isolation  of  America  and  made 
Americans  conscious  of  the  wealth  of  their 
racial  heritage  and  of  their  place  in  the  un 
broken  development  of  civilization. 

In  Longfellow's  youth  began  that  pilgrim 
age  of  aspiring  young  men  from  the  American 
colleges  to  the  German  universities  which 
contributed  largely  to  the  restoration  of  what 
may  be  called  the  intellectual  equilibrium 
between  the  Old  and  the  New  World,  and 
which  greatly  affected  the  educational  aims 

126 


PROVINCIAL  LITERATURE 

and  methods  in  the  American  colleges.  The 
return  of  ardent  young  scholars  like  Ban 
croft,  who  wrote  later  the  first  authoritative 
history  of  the  United  States,  and  of  Everett, 
the  polished  orator  and  publicist  and  president 
of  Harvard  College,  marked  the  beginning 
also  of  the  very  definite  influence  of  German 
thought  and  literature  on  American  culture. 
With  these  young  scholars  and  poets,  Pro 
vincial  America  passed  into  Sectional  America. 


127 


SECTIONAL  LITERATURE 

IN  the  year  1817,  in  the  best-known  Ameri 
can  periodical  of  the  time,  there  appeared  a 
poem  by  a  young  man  who  had  been  born 
among  the  New  England  hills  and  was  then 
studying  law.  "Thanatopsis"  was  the  first 
notable  poem  from  an  American  hand,  and 
its  author,  William  Cullen  Bryant,  was  the 
first  man  to  strike  a  new  note  in  its  poetry, 
which  until  that  time  had  been  slight,  grace 
ful  and  imitative,  or  satirical  in  mood.  The 
population  had  doubled  since  the  colonists 
gained  their  independence,  and  seven  million 
people  now  called  themselves  Americans; 
they  had  settled  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  or 
ganized  the  country  beyond  the  Alleghany 
Mountains  into  states  or  territories,  acquired 
by  purchase  from  France  an  immense  section 
between  the  Mississippi  River  and  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  maintained  the  national  authority 
in  the  face  of  local  insurrections  and  of  threats 


SECTIONAL  LITERATURE 

of  secession  north  and  south,  fought  a  second 
time  with  Great  Britain,  built  roads  and  canals, 
and  laid  the  foundations  of  a  great  manufac 
turing  prosperity. 

The  Provincial  Period  was  at  an  end ;  the 
Sectional  Period  had  begun.  The  country 
was  in  the  condition  of  Italy  in  the  early 
years  of  reunion,  when  men  still  called  them 
selves  Piedmontese,  Venetians,  Romans, 
Sicilians,  rather  than  Italians.  In  the  United 
States  men  and  women  thought  of  themselves 
first  as  New  Englanders,  Virginians,  South 
Carolinians.  The  state  consciousness  was 
sharply  developed  and  keenly  sensitive  in 
all  matters  of  local  interest  or  dignity;  a 
national  consciousness  was  yet  to  be  born. 
The  Northern  States  were  rapidly  developing 
manufacturing  and  demanded  the  protection 
of  tariff  legislation ;  the  Southern  States  were 
largely  given  to  agriculture  and  were  opposed 
to  any  restrictions  of  trade.  In  the  North 
one  State  after  another  had  abolished  slavery ; 
in  the  South,  where  many  men  of  great 
prominence  foresaw  inevitable  trouble  and  the 
inevitable  passing  of  the  system,  the  economic 

K  129 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

needs  "of  the  new  States  on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico 
seemed  to  make  slave  labor  a  necessity.  In 
the  alignment  of  conviction  on  the  funda 
mental  question  of  the  relative  powers  of  the 
States  and  of  the  Federal  government  the 
people  of  the  Southern  States  largely  held  to 
the  sovereignty  of  the  States,  while  a  majority 
of  the  people  of  the  North  held  that  sover 
eignty  resided  in  the  nation. 

These  differences  were  in  part  reflected  in 
differences  of  social  ideal  and  habit,  and  in 
part  reenforced  by  these  differences.  The 
rigid  rule  of  religious  discipline  in  New  Eng 
land  had  been  greatly  relaxed  and  the  attempt 
to  establish  a  government  along  the  lines  of 
the  Jewish  theocracy  abandoned ;  but  the 
Puritan  emphasis  on  morals  still  held,  and  the 
widespread  interest  in  religion  was  evidenced 
by  the  Unitarian  protest  against  the  Calvin- 
istic  conception  of  the  nature  of  deity  and  of 
humanity.  The  people  were,  as  a  rule,  of 
sober  temper;  industry  and  frugality  were 
characteristic  of  the  section;  education  was 
held  in  high  regard,  and  was  universal.  The 
Middle  Colonies  were  cosmopolitan  in  pop- 

130 


SECTIONAL  LITERATURE 

ulation,  social  life  was  freer,  and  there  was 
little  moral  tension.  English,  French  and 
Dutch,  in  New  York,  Swedes  in  New  Jersey, 
Friends  from  England  and  Germans  from  the 
Rhine  provinces  in  Pennsylvania,  English 
men  of  the  Roman  Catholic  faith  in  Mary 
land,  fostered  tolerance  of  opinion  and  ease  of 
mood.  Englishmen  of  the  aristocratic  type, 
living  like  great  English  landlords,  in  Vir 
ginia;  the  descendants  of  the  French  Prot 
estants  in  South  Carolina;  men  of  Spanish 
and  French  blood  in  Louisiana,  —  presented  a 
broad  contrast  to  the  New  England  temper 
ament  and  habit.  Life  on  the  plantation 
was,  in  its  best  estate,  patriarchical  in  spirit; 
work  was  done  by  slaves ;  the  landowners 
were  hospitable  and  generous,  given  to  sport 
and  out-of-door  life.  When  the  question  of 
restricting  or  extending  slavery  began  to  be 
seriously  discussed  about  the  time  of  the  ap 
pearance  of  Irving  and  Bryant,  there  were 
distinct  temperamental  and  political  differ 
ences  between  the  North  and  the  South. 

A  great  war  was  to  be  fought  to  the  bitter 
end  before  a  national  literature  could  come 

131 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

into  existence.  Literature  is  primarily  an 
expression,  and,  while  prophetic  notes  are 
always  heard  in  it,  it  cannot  travel  far  ahead 
of  the  consciousness  of  the  race  that  produces 
it.  It  is  touched  with  visions  of  the  future, 
but  it  is  conditioned  largely  on  the  expe 
rience  of  the  people  who  produce  it.  Pro 
vincial  America  produced  little  literature  be 
cause,  among  other  reasons,  it  had  no  expe 
rience  to  express  and  interpret.  Sectional 
America  produced  a  literature  which  was 
largely  sectional  in  experience  and  feeling 
because  there  were  as  yet  only  pools  of  com 
mon  consciousness,  so  to  speak;  the  con 
sciousness  which  has  the  breadth  and  reach  of 
the  sea,  and  its  universality,  could  come  only 
when  the  people  of  the  States  became  the 
people  of  a  nation. 

This  local  consciousness  first  found  expression 
in  New  York,  where  people  had  lived  together 
long  enough  to  have  a  store  of  common  mem 
ories,  of  common  habits,  and  of  common  ideals 
and  hopes.  Irving  happily  expressed  the  com 
munity  feeling  at  the  same  time  that  he  revived 
the  sense  of  community  with  the  Old  World. 

132 


SECTIONAL  LITERATURE 

American  landscape  painters  were  impressed 
at  the  beginning  by  the  vastness  of  the  New 
World  landscapes,  and  many  of  the  early 
canvases  were  on  a  great  scale.  Bryant, 
though  of  classical  education  and  familiar 
with  English  poetry,  saw  that  he  was  in  a 
new  world.  It  is  often  said  that  magnitude 
has  no  significance  for  art ;  that  quality  alone 
counts.  But  we  study  a  building  not  only 
with  reference  to  its  construction,  but  with 
reference  to  its  situation ;  we  do  not  put  a 
small  picture  in  a  large  frame,  nor  do  we  place 
a  small  building  at  the  focal  point  of  a  great 
landscape.  Now,  in  America,  magnitude  did 
count  and  will  always  count;  to  dismiss  it 
as  mere  bigness  —  mass  without  organization 
—  is  a  fatal  blunder  if  one  wishes  to  under 
stand  or  to  judge  intelligently.  For  in  Amer 
ica  bigness  is  not  inert ;  it  is  potential. 

Bryant  saw  that  Nature  in  the  New  World 
is  not  on  the  scale  of  a  county  or  of  a  prov 
ince,  but  of  a  continent.  Matthew  Arnold 
said  that  the  American  landscape  was  not 
interesting.  It  was  a  judgment  possible  only 
to  a  man  who  held  that  in  landscape  a  certain 

133 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

scale  is  absolute.  But  scale  is  relative ; 
there  is  a  scale  for  England  and  a  scale  for 
America;  and  each  in  its  place  is  adequate 
and  final.  The  American  landscape  does  not 
lack  beauty  of  detail ;  but  it  is  molded  on  a 
great  scale.  If  the  continent  could  be  seen 
in  one  all-embracing  vision,  it  would  show  a 
massive  structural  plan;  lines  that  sweep 
over  a  thousand  miles ;  mountain  ranges  that 
run  from  the  Arctic  zone  to  the  tropics ; 
valleys  cut  by  imperious  rivers  which,  like 
the  Colorado,  flow  a  mile  below  the  edges  of 
what  were  its  banks  a  million  years  ago; 
plains  which,  seen  from  the  upper  slopes  of 
the  hills,  have  the  sweep  of  the  sea,  but  with 
the  wonder  and  mystery  of  sunlight  modulated 
by  vast  distances;  deserts  stretching,  shim 
mering  in  fierce  light,  from  horizon  to  horizon. 
On  a  landscape  of  such  range,  with  diversities 
of  feature  as  striking  as  its  extent,  scale  is  the 
first  and  most  obvious  element ;  an  element  as 
susceptible  of  artistic  treatment  as  the  ex 
quisite  delicacy  of  miniature  landscapes. 

Bryant's   imagination   was   not   facile,   his 
command  of  verse  forms  was  limited,  but  the 

134 


SECTIONAL  LITERATURE 

majesty  of  an  almost  unsubdued  continent 
gave  him  a  sense  of  elemental  things.  Sim 
plicity,  vigor,  love  of  untamed  Nature,  a 
primitive  divination  of  the  greatness  of  life  in 
the  companionship  of  Nature,  give  his  work 
austere  beauty.  He  knew  Nature  about  his 
home  as  well,  and  his  songs  of  flowers  and 
birds  are  dear  to  Americans  by  reason  of  their 
beautiful  rendering  of  things  familiar  to  the 
eye,  but  full  of  mystery  to  the  imagination. 
Like  all  the  poets  of  his  section,  he  could  not 
escape  the  moral  implications  of  life  as  the 
Puritan  saw  it,  and  the  lines  "To  a  Water 
fowl,"  limned  against  the  sky  with  something 
of  the  fidelity  of  a  Japanese  painter,  became 
a  parable  of  human  destiny. 

In  Bryant  three  or  four  notes  are  sounded 
which  have  never  been  silent  in  American 
poetry :  love  of  Nature,  love  of  country, 
love  of  liberty,  love  of  home.  A  large  body 
of  American  poetry  of  the  Sectional  Period  is 
dear  to  children,  not  because  it  was  written 
for  them,  but  because  it  deals  with  childhood, 
with  life  in  the  home,  with  the  sorrows  and 
joys  of  the  school,  the  fields,  the  shaded 

135 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

streets,  the  brooks  and  the  woods.  This  is 
preeminently  true  of  the  verse  of  Whittier, 
the  Quaker  poet,  whose  "Snow  Bound" 
is  the  idyl  of  the  old-time  life  on  the  New 
England  farm,  and  whose  songs  of  religion 
are  tender  and  trustful  psalms  of  faith  in  the 
divine  love  and  care.  In  American  schools  on 
certain  days  one  will  hear  "Skipper  Ireson's 
Ride,"  or  Longfellow's  "Psalm  of  Life,"  or 
Lowell's  "The  First  Snow,"  or  Emerson's 
"Good-by,  Proud  World,"  or  Dr.  Holmes' 
"The  Nautilus,"  or  Bryant's  "Death  of  the 
Flowers."  Whittier  was  a  farmer's  son  and 
knew  the  workers  in  the  small  New  England 
towns.  He  was  a  poet  of  the  people ;  his  hatred 
of  slavery  made  him  preeminently  a  poet  of 
freedom,  and  his  poems  during  the  long  debate 
which  preceded  the  war  and  during  the  four 
terrible  years  of  conflict  were  notable  for  their 
undismayed  faith  in  the  victory  of  freedom. 
The  most  accomplished  New  England  writer 
and  the  most  accomplished  man  of  Letters 
whom  America  has  so  far  produced,  although 
a  man  of  academic  training  and  long  academic 
association,  was  also  a  poet  of  democratic 

136 


SECTIONAL  LITERATURE 

instinct  and  sympathies ;  a  lover  of  Nature, 
of  the  home  and  of  freedom.  In  the  later 
years  of  his  life  Lowell  entered  public  life  as 
the  American  Ambassador  in  London,  where 
his  delightful  personality,  his  broad  culture, 
his  wit  and  a  kind  of  new-world  freedom,  never 
obtruded  but  were  never  concealed,  made  him 
an  ideal  representative  of  his  country.  He 
had,  too,  a  charming  gift  of  public  speech, 
and  no  one  was  heard  with  more  pleasure 
on  literary  and  commemorative  occasions. 
A  scholar  in  three  or  four  literatures,  Lowell 
had  an  intimate  knowledge  of  the  plain 
country  folk  of  his  section,  the  old-time 
Yankee,  who,  in  foreign  eyes,  has  become  the 
typical  American,  although  he  was  the  product 
of  a  small  section  and  represents  the  country 
as  little  as  the  mastodon  represents  the  animal 
world  of  to-day.  Lowell  had  many  gifts,  and 
his  "Commemoration  Ode"  at  the  close  of 
the  war  rose  easily  to  a  great  national  theme  ; 
but  his  most  characteristic  quality  was  humor, 
which  he  used  with  great  effect  in  the  years 
when  the  encroachment  of  slavery  evoked 
increasing  and  determined  resistance.  The 

137 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

"Biglow  Papers"  are  in  the  Yankee  dialect, 
and  have  all  the  Yankee  shrewdness  and  the 
dry  Yankee  humor. 

Emerson,  the  descendant  of  Puritan  preach 
ers  and  scholars,  of  a  singular  unworldliness 
of  temper  and  a  nature  from  which  evil 
instincts  seemed  to  be  absent,  an  idealist, 
a  reformer  and  a  shrewd  observer,  who 
taught  a  philosophy  of  life  which  brought  the 
simplest  duties  and  tasks  into  harmony  with 
the  most  daring  aspirations,  was  a  poet  of  a 
few  notes  of  singular  purity.  He  was  chiefly 
a  writer  of  essays,  but  half  a  dozen  poems  of 
his  are  likely  to  be  remembered  as  long  as  any 
verse  of  his  period.  They  are  mystical, 
elusive,  with  not  a  little  of  Oriental  thought 
in  them;  but  they  have  a  simplicity  of  form 
and  a  homeliness  of  imagery  and  illustration 
which  make  them  as  familiar  as  the  stars  and 
as  splendidly  remote  from  common  things. 
To  Emerson  the  highest  thoughts  were  for 
domestic  use,  and  he  held  nothing  too  sacred 
or  too  divine  for  human  service.  As  a  poet 
his  range  was  limited,  he  lacked  facility  in  the 
use  of  verse,  and  he  lacked  the  fire  and  color 

138 


SECTIONAL  LITERATURE 

of  temperament;  but  he  had  a  few  hours 
of  inspiration,  and  in  these  hours  he  wrote 
half  a  dozen  poems  of  spiritual  insight  and  of 
original  phrasing.  A  radical  democrat  in 
his  conception  of  life  as  a  spiritual  oppor 
tunity  open  on  equal  terms  to  all  men,  Emer 
son  regarded  slavery  as  an  almost  incredible 
anachronism  in  the  nineteenth  century  and  on 
American  soil,  and  assumed  its  extinction  as 
inevitable. 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  was  born  in  a  colonial 
house  within  the  grounds  of  the  oldest  Amer 
ican  university.  He  was  of  the  purest  New 
England  blood,  and  his  mind  was  of  the  most 
distinctive  New  England  type.  He  had 
thrown  off,  ancestrally,  the  rigid  Puritan  faith 
and  practice,  but  he  retained  and  expressed 
its  moral  health,  its  refinement  of  taste,  its 
fastidiousness  of  personal  association ;  he  was 
an  aristocrat  of  intellectual  temper,  with  a 
genius  for  celebrating  ancestral  achievements 
and  local  customs.  Goethe's  genius  loci  stands 
beside  the  Ilm  in  the  lovely  park  at  Weimar ; 
Dr.  Holmes'  genius  loci  may  be  found  on 
Boston  Common. 

139 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

A  teacher  of  medicine  by  vocation  and  not 
without  distinction  in  that  field,  he  was  the 
creator  of  a  new  literary  form  in  which  fiction, 
narrative,  philosophy  and  shrewd  observation 
of  life  were  dexterously  fused  into  a  vivacious, 
ingenious  and  suggestive  narrative,  hah6  fact 
and  half  fable.  His  wit  was  quick,  clean, 
neat ;  he  lacked  the  broad,  sympathetic  qual 
ity  of  Lowell's  humor.  He  was  a  poet  of  occa 
sions,  but  his  occasional  verse  has  a  vitality 
of  feeling  and  of  fancy  which  has  survived  the 
occasions.  The  lights  were  extinguished  long 
ago,  the  diners  have  gone  and  the  rooms  are 
silent,  but  the  celebrations  of  friendship,  of 
loyalty  to  old  affections,  of  tender  memory  of 
the  dead,  have  become  the  commemorative 
songs  of  a  later  generation.  Dr.  Holmes' 
novels  are  original  and  entertaining,  but  they 
are  the  work  of  a  versatile  writer  using  fiction 
to  express  ideas  and  theories.  Alone  among 
the  poets  of  his  section,  he  lacked  the  tempera 
ment  of  the  reformer,  and  the  stormy  times  in 
which  he  lived  affected  neither  his  occupations 
nor  his  writing. 

To  New  England  and  to  the  Sectional 
140 


SECTIONAL  LITERATURE 

Period  belongs  a  prose  writer  of  high  distinc 
tion,  whose  place,  in  any  critical  estimate  of 
the  Puritan  literature,  is  beside  Emerson. 
The  child  of  a  long  line  of  colonists,  Hawthorne 
had  great  beauty  of  person,  a  reticence  through 
which  only  a  very  few  passed  to  intimate 
friendship,  a  brooding  imagination  and  the 
habit  of  solitude.  He  was  fortunate  in  his 
college  associations,  and  ideally  fortunate  in 
his  marriage  with  a  woman  of  a  sensibility  as 
delicate  as  his  own,  but  of  great  sanity  of 
mind.  In  Miss  Wilkins'  stories  of  New 
England  there  are  many  lay  hermits ;  men  and 
women  who  live  alone  on  the  outskirts  of 
villages  or  on  remote  farms,  and  have  only  the 
most  casual  relations  with  their  fellows. 
These  recluses  are  the  victims  of  individual 
ism  become  morbid ;  a  type  of  temperament 
which  closely  approaches  insanity.  Haw 
thorne  grew  up  in  such  a  family,  and  might 
have  taken  refuge  in  solitude  and  silence  but 
for  an  impulse  to  express  himself  which 
became  imperative  and  the  devotion  of  a  wife 
who  understood  and  helped  him. 

Later  he  lived  in  England  and  in  Italy ; 
141 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

but,  though  his  imagination  was  stimulated 
by  Italian  art  and  scenery,  he  was  not  greatly 
affected  by  either  country.  He  was  an  ob 
server  of  men  and  events,  but  was  never  on 
intimate  terms  with  life.  His  intellectual 
detachment  was  as  complete  as  his  personal 
isolation  in  a  period  of  great  agitation.  Those 
who  were  on  terms  of  friendship  with  him  found 
him  singularly  free  from  every  kind  of  preten 
sion,  self -poised,  acute  in  observation  and  power 
of  analysis,  and  capable  of  complete  absorp 
tion  in  his  work.  His  wife  speaks  of  him  as 
simple,  transparent,  just,  tender  and  magnan 
imous,  and  of  a  wonderful  delicacy  of  nature. 
"Was  there  ever,"  she  wrote,  "such  a  union 
of  power  and  gentleness,  such  softness  and 
spirit,  passion  and  reason?" 

In  all  the  New  England  writers,  character 
bore  so  intimate  a  relation  to  genius  and  was 
so  large  an  element  in  their  work  that  it  is  im 
possible  to  deal  with  them  simply  as  artists. 
They  were  first  and  always  men  of  conviction, 
and  art  was  to  them  a  form  of  expression 
rather  than  a  manner  of  life.  But  Haw 
thorne  was  primarily  an  artist.  His  earliest 

142 


SECTIONAL  LITERATURE 

experiments  in  writing  were  short  sketches 
and  shadowy  stories ;  in  which  his  imagina 
tion,  not  yet  strong  enough  for  constructive 
work,  played  with  supernatural  suggestions, 
morbid  experiences,  mysterious  incidents.  In 
many  of  these  sketches  there  was  obvious 
moralization,  but  it  was  in  the  interest  of  art 
rather  than  of  ethical  teaching.  Hawthorne 
dealt  habitually  with  the  problems  of  con 
science,  not  because  he  was  a  teacher  of  morals, 
but  because  these  problems  were  part  of  his 
inheritance,  and  because  they  possessed  him 
with  a  sense  of  their  artistic  potentiality. 
Many  of  these  sketches  were  slight  in  sub 
stance  and  manner,  but  they  had  a  kind  of 
twilight  beauty. 

His  longer  stories  are  not  novels;  with  the 
exception  of  the  "Marble  Faun"  they  are 
romances  of  the  New  England  mind  and  tem 
perament;  and  the  "Marble  Faun,"  wholly 
Italian  in  background  and  largely  Italian  in 
character,  is  pervaded  by  the  spirit  of  the 
Puritans.  The  "Scarlet  Letter,"  still  the 
foremost  story  written  by  an  American,  deals 
with  the  problem  of  sin  in  its  moral  conse- 

143 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

quences  with  a  penetration  of  analysis  and  a 
subtlety  of  perception  that  make  it  the  classic 
study  of  the  Puritan  conscience.  It  is  so  full 
of  shadows  that  we  seem  to  be  seeing  tragedy 
on  a  half -lighted  stage;  but  the  sense  of  the 
grip  of  the  offense  on  the  offender  is  as  unes- 
capable  as  in  Tolstoi's  "Anna  Karenina." 
The  tale  is  steeped  in  a  dusky  splendor  like 
the  glow  of  cathedral  windows  at  sunset; 
and  the  style  has  the  reticence  of  suggestion 
and  the  compass  of  complete  expression. 
In  "The  House  of  Seven  Gables,"  the  "Blithe- 
dale  Romance"  and  the  posthumous  tales, 
later  aspects  of  New  England  temperament 
and  individualistic  attitude  of  mind  are  stud 
ied  and  sketched  with  a  vitality  of  imagina 
tion  which  makes  it  impossible  to  separate 
Hawthorne's  style  from  his  subject  matter. 
To  the  period  of  Sectional  America  belong 
two  or  three  writers  widely  known  outside 
their  own  country.  Cooper  divides  with 
Irving  the  honor  of  giving  American  writing 
its  larger  initial  impulse,  and  of  making 
Europe  aware  that  the  young  communities 
beyond  the  sea  had  something  significant  to 

144 


SECTIONAL  LITERATURE 

express  and  knew  how  to  express  it.  Amer 
ican  poetry  dates  from  the  publication  of 
Bryant's  "  Thanatopsis  "  in  1817  and  American 
fiction  from  the  appearance  of  "The  Spy" 
in  1821.  Stories  had  been  published  in  Amer 
ica,  but  they  were  experiments  rather  than 
achievements;  and  while  some  of  them,  the 
tales  of  Charles  Brockden  Brown  especially, 
have  historical  interest,  they  do  not  count  in  a 
general  survey  of  American  literature.  Cooper 
does  count;  he  is  still  read  in  all  parts  of  the 
world,  and  for  many  decades  in  all  parts  of 
Europe  boys  have  organized  themselves  into 
bands  of  Cooper  Indians. 

The  future  novelist  spent  his  childhood  on 
the  shores  of  a  lake  of  great  beauty  in  a  sec 
tion  of  the  state  of  New  York  intimately  asso 
ciated  with  the  romance  and  terror  of  Indian 
warfare.  He  was  of  a  vigorous,  pugnacious 
and  aggressive  nature;  he  heard  stories  of 
adventure  from  Indian  fighters  and  trappers, 
for  the  frontier  had  only  recently  been  moved 
westward.  He  was  sent  to  Yale  College, 
but  his  temperament  led  him  into  acts  of 
insubordination  which  prematurely  ended  his 

145 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

career  as  a  student;  and  he  went  to  sea  in 
further  pursuit  of  adventure.  After  varied 
experiences,  valuable  chiefly  because  they 
furnished  him  with  material  for  several  sea 
stories,  two  of  which  —  "The  Pilot"  and 
"The  Red  Rover"  —  are  still  widely  read,  he 
came  ashore,  married  and  made  his  home  in 
the  city  of  New  York. 

His  first  venture  in  fiction  was  a  dull  story 
of  English  society  life,  which  he  knew  only  by 
hearsay.  But  "Precaution,"  which  might 
well  have  died  of  its  name,  was  succeeded 
and  obliterated  the  following  year  by  "The 
Spy."  The  earlier  tale  was  in  the  mood  of 
Provincial  America,  not  yet  aware  of  its  own 
resources;  the  second  tale  was  a  story  of  the 
country  lying  across  the  river  from  New 
York  and  of  the  heroic  days  still  remembered 
by  many  of  Cooper's  contemporaries.  It  was 
a  stirring  tale  of  the  border  warfare  between 
the  patriots  and  the  Tories  —  as  the  adher 
ents  of  the  British  government  were  called 
by  the  rebellious  Americans;  it  described 
events  of  high  interest  in  a  history  which 
Americans  were  already  idealizing,  and  it  con- 

146 


SECTIONAL  LITERATURE 

tained  a  strongly  drawn  character,  Harvey 
Birch,  the  spy,  which  appealed  to  the  imagina 
tion  and  patriotism  of  the  country.  "The 
Spy"  may  be  said  to  have  leaped  into  popu 
larity  both  at  home  and  abroad.  It  was  trans 
lated  into  many  languages,  and  a  year  after 
Cooper's  death  a  writer  on  Nicaragua  declared 
that  it  was  the  best-known  book  in  English 
in  South  America ;  he  found  it  everywhere. 

;<The  Spy"  was  the  first  story  of  American 
life  by  an  American,  of  permanent  literary 
value  and  significance ;  but  other  stories  as 
distinctively  of  the  soil  were  to  follow  and 
surpass  it  in  popular  interest.  In  Indian 
habits,  manners  and  character,  which  Cooper 
knew  at  first  hand,  he  had  material  which  was 
not  only  new  but  novel.  Europe  was  intensely 
curious  about  the  Indian ;  from  the  time  of 
the  earliest  discoveries  strange  and  terrifying 
tales  of  his  cunning  and  cruelty  had  passed 
from  country  to  country;  and  in  America 
he  was  still  a  menace,  a  savage  and  merciless 
foe  or  an  idle  drunken  loafer.  The  five 
novels  of  the  Leatherstocking  Series  were 
novels  of  adventure  which  had  the  significance 

147 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

of  history  as  well  as  the  interest  of  fiction. 
For  the  first  time  the  Indian  was  sympatheti 
cally  presented  and  the  romance  of  frontier 
life  reduced  to  terms  of  literature,  so  to  speak. 
For  the  trapper  arid  the  pioneer  played  almost 
as  great  a  part  as  the  Indian  in  these  tales. 
Leatherstocking  is,  indeed,  Cooper's  most 
vital  creation ;  the  lonely  figure  on  the  advanc 
ing  line  of  civilization,  a  child  of  the  old  order 
freed  from  conventions  by  companionship 
with  Nature ;  the  pioneer  who  explored  the 
forests,  sailed  over  the  great  lakes,  crossed  the 
almost  illimitable  prairies  and  plains,  from  the 
boundaries  of  the  original  colonies  on  the  sea 
board  to  the  ultimate  limits  of  the  continent 
on  the  western  sea. 

Cooper's  style  had  neither  flexibility  nor 
variety;  he  was  a  careless  writer,  almost 
devoid  of  the  finer  qualities  of  the  artist ; 
he  was  diffuse  and  often  commonplace,  and 
he  had  little  skill  in  portraiture.  But  he  had 
the  qualities  demanded  by  his  subjects:  rapid 
narrative,  graphic  description,  skill  in  keeping 
his  readers  in  suspense,  and  genuine  feeling 
for  large  effects  on  land  and  sea. 

148 


SECTIONAL  LITERATURE 

Cooper  was  an  effective  writer ;  Poe  was 
preeminently  the  artist,  interested  neither  in 
public  movements  nor  in  private  morals, 
but  in  beauty,  and  in  the  workmanship  which 
reflects  and  expresses  it.  The  grandson  of  a 
soldier  of  the  Revolution,  Poe  was  the  first 
Southern  writer  to  make  a  lasting  contribu 
tion  to  American  literature ;  there  had  been 
other  prose  and  verse  writers  of  merit  in  that 
section,  but  they  were  of  secondary  importance. 
The  interest  of  the  South  was  in  politics  and 
oratory ;  fields  in  which  the  section  long  held  a 
commanding  position.  Slavery  was  a  feudal 
institution;  the  growing  sentiment  of  the 
world  put  the  South  on  the  defensive;  the 
section  drifted  out  of  the  current  of  world 
movement ;  as  a  distinguished  Southern  writer 
of  to-day  has  said  :  "Assuming  provincialism 
to  be  localism,  or  being  on  one  side  or  apart 
from  the  general  movement  of  contemporary 
life,  the  South  was  provincial."  Active  out- 
of-door  habits  of  life,  a  population  devoted 
largely  to  agriculture,  and  a  native  aptitude 
for  politics  retarded  literary  expression  among 
a  people  who  had  both  the  temperament  and 

149 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

the  love  of  action  which  play  so  great  a  part 
in  poetry  and  in  fiction. 

Poe  was  the  victim  of  an  unhappy  tempera 
ment  and,  while  he  found  friends  and  oppor 
tunity  in  the  crises  in  his  career,  he  could 
neither  keep  the  one  nor  make  effective  use 
of  the  other.  His  uncertain  will,  his  unsettled 
habits,  the  many  interruptions  to  his  work, 
must  be  taken  into  account  in  any  estimate 
of  his  production.  He  was  a  tireless  and  pro 
lific  writer ;  but,  save  in  a  little  group  of  poems 
and  of  short  stories,  his  genius  never  fully 
expressed  itself.  His  life  was  in  his  work,  for 
he  was  of  a  sensitive,  highly  strung  nature, 
and  the  pursuit  of  beauty  was  a  passion  with 
him ;  and  yet  that  work  was  essentially  casual 
and  fragmentary.  It  is  well  to  remember, 
however,  that  an  artist  is  under  the  compulsion 
of  his  temperament,  and  that  the  very  qualities 
which  limit  and  apparently  defeat  the  largest 
expression  of  his  genius  often  give  his  work  its 
special  distinction  both  of  matter  and  of  man 
ner.  Poe  had  a  keenly  analytic  mind,  but  he 
was  not  a  deep  and  fruitful  thinker;  he  had 
exquisite  artistic  skill  in  construction,  in  dic- 

150 


SECTIONAL  LITERATURE 

tion,  in  the  use  of  light  and  shade;  but  he 
lacked  the  broad  and  rich  humanity  of  the 
great  poets.  His  intelligence  was  clear  and 
penetrating  and  took  him  far  in  the  explora 
tion  of  morbid  temperaments;  but  it  did  not 
take  him  to  the  sources  of  poetic  vitality, 
of  great  human  qualities,  of  that  abounding 
humor  which  is  the  overflow  of  a  rich,  whole 
some  nature.  Poe  was  inventive  rather  than 
creative;  he  devised  stories  of  fascinating 
intellectual  ingenuity  in  which  he  played 
with  his  readers  as  if  a  chessboard  were 
between  them;  he  knew  terror  and  mystery, 
and  he  had  almost  magical  skill  in  taking 
possession  not  only  of  the  imagination  but 
of  the  senses  of  his  readers.  He  was  a  magi 
cian  rather  than  a  man  of  creative  genius ; 
he  stood  outside  his  work ;  a  pathetic  spectral 
man  of  genius  pursuing  a  substance  which 
somehow  changed  to  shadow  when  he  over 
took  it. 

Poe's  distinction  lies  in  the  fact  that  he  was 
preeminently  the  artist  among  American  writ 
ers  of  his  time ;  that  he  wrote  a  few  lyrics  of 
exquisite  beauty ;  that  he  created  a  new  kind 

151 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

of  writing  in  what  is  called  the  story  of  Ratio 
cination  ;  that  he  made  the  short  story  a  work 
of  art;  and  that,  both  by  his  exposition  of 
literary  principles  and  his  criticism  of  the 
work  of  the  writers  of  his  time,  he  raised  the 
standards  and  defined  the  methods  of  the 
art  of  writing.  "The  Murders  in  the  Rue 
Morgue,"  "The  Purloined  Letter"  and  "The 
Gold  Bug"  have  a  European  reputation; 
and,  with  "The  Pit  and  the  Pendulum," 
"William  Wilson,"  "Ligeia,"  "The  Fall  of  the 
House  of  Usher"  and  other  tales  of  mystery 
and  horror,  and  "Israfel,"  "Al  Aaraaf," 
"The  Haunted  Palace,"  "Lines  to  Helen," 
"The  City  in  the  Sea  "  and  other  poems  of 
magical  euphonic  beauty,  have  given  Poe  a 
distinctive  influence  in  French  and  German 
literature. 

t  In  these  writers,  who  may  stand  as  repre 
sentatives  of  a  large  group,  New  England, 
New  York  and  the  Middle  Colonies  and  the 
South  recorded  their  local  traits,  tempera 
ment,  convictions.  They  are  the  voices  of 
Sectional  America;  dealing  with  many  things 
which  were  common  to  men  of  all  parts  of 

152 


SECTIONAL  LITERATURE 

the  country,  but  speaking  from  the  sectional 
consciousness.  There  have  always  been  men 
in  America  who  have  foreseen  its  development, 
and  in  the  days  of  the  struggling  colonies 
predicted  the  coming  nation;  and  more  than 
once  in  Emerson,  in  Lowell,  in  Whittier,  one 
heard  the  vibration  of  the  national  note ; 
but  the  note  of  prophecy  lacks  the  resonance, 
the  fullness  of  tone,  the  vibrating  quality  of 
the  note  of  fulfillment. 

The  nation  was  born  in  the  throes  of  the  four 
years'  War  between  the  States ;  a  struggle  of 
tremendous  forces  waged  with  equal  deter 
mination  and  patriotic  devotion  by  both  con 
testants.  The  question  of  the  extension  of 
the  system  of  slavery  into  the  newer  States 
disappeared  as  the  struggle  deepened  in  the 
consciousness  of  the  people  into  a  conflict 
between  two  opposing  views  of  the  structure 
of  the  government.  Was  it  a  voluntary  asso 
ciation  of  sovereign  States  dissoluble  at  will,  or 
was  it  a  Nation  ? 

Each  year  on  memorial  days  the  men 
who  fought  in  both  armies  march  in  thin 
ning  ranks  through  great  crowds,  hushed  into 

153 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

silence  or  breaking  into  cheers  as  they  pass ; 
but  already  the  old  antagonisms  are  buried, 
and  a  nation  has  come  out  of  the  storm  and 
anguish  of  those  years.  But  what  has  been 
happily  called  a  moral  miracle  of  reconcilia 
tion  does  not  blur  the  agony  of  those  years, 
the  haunting  sense  of  peril  to  things  as  dear 
as  life  and  to  persons  far  dearer,  the  exhaust 
ing  drain  on  the  resources  of  the  country,  the 
heart-breaking  suspense. 

In  these  soul-searching  experiences  a  nation 
was  born.  The  practical  work  went  on,  as 
such  work  must  go  on,  in  the  very  throes  of 
revolution,  but  the  country  waited  at  times 
with  bated  breath  for  news  from  the  battle 
fields,  and  all  other  interests  waited  on  the 
course  of  events.  Spirited  lyrics  were  written 
on  both  sides,  and  the  nation  came  out  of  the 
struggle  with  three  or  four  songs  which  gave  ex 
pression  to  deep  feeling  or  passionate  devotion 
to  both  causes.  Of  these  the  most  impressive 
is  "The  Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic";  the 
most  poetic  in  phrase  and  feeling  is  "Mary 
land,  My  Maryland" ;  while  the  most  "catch 
ing,"  to  use  a  word  which  carries  with  it  a 

154 


SECTIONAL  LITERATURE 

sense  of  immediate  appeal  easy  to  remember 
and  of  singable  rhythm,  is  "  Dixie,"  the  popular 
Confederate  song,  which  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  a 
speech  from  the  porch  of  the  White  House 
a  few  nights  before  his  death,  humorously 
said  the  nation  had  acquired  by  conquest. 
"The  Star-Spangled  Banner,"  the  national 
anthem,  is  neither  poetic  in  diction  nor  easily 
singable  by  crowds  of  people,  and  Americans 
still  wait  for  a  national  hymn  which  shall  be  at 
once  noble  and  simple. 


155 


VI 
NATIONAL  LITERATURE 

THE  War  between  the  States  not  only  made 
the  power  of  the  Federal  government  supreme 
and  the  union  of  States  indissoluble,  but  it 
defined  the  national  idea  in  terms  which  the 
whole  country  understood.  There  was  no 
breaking  down  of  State  lines  ;  they  are  as  defi 
nite  as  they  were  before  the  struggle ;  but  the 
States  are  no  longer  sovereign ;  they  are  inte 
gral  and  inviolable  parts  of  a  larger  sover 
eignty.  There  will  always  be  differences  of 
opinion  with  regard  to  the  proper  division  of 
authority  between  the  States  and  the  nation ; 
but  the  fundamental  question  of  supreme  au 
thority  has  been  settled  forever.  Americans 
who  used  to  consider  questions  of  policy  from 
the  standpoint  of  their  several  States  now  con 
sider  such  questions  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  nation ;  and  those  who  used  to  think  in 
terms  of  a  section  now  think  in  terms  of  a 
continent. 

156 


NATIONAL  LITERATURE 

In  the  making  of  a  nation  there  must  be 
means  of  free  intercourse  between  different 
sections  and  free  interchange  of  information 
and  ideas.  One  of  the  most  competent  stu 
dents  of  American  life,  M.  Brunetiere,  the 
distinguished  critic  and  editor  of  the  Revue 
de  Deux  Mondes,  as  the  result  of  a  journey 
of  observation  across  the  continent,  expressed 
his  conviction  that  one  of  the  most  serious 
obstacles  to  the  development  of  the  higher 
civilization  in  America  is  the  distance  between 
the  leading  cities.  New  Orleans,  for  instance, 
is  1400  miles  distant  from  Boston,  Chicago 
1100  miles  from  Washington,  and  San  Fran 
cisco  3000  miles  from  New  York.  These  great 
distances  between  sections  would  have  been 
almost  insuperable  obstacles  to  the  growth 
of  a  vital  unity  of  opinion,  feeling  and  action 
between  the  East  and  the  West  if  they  had 
not  been  diminished  by  modern  methods  of 
communication.  In  the  days  of  the  stage 
coach  and  the  canal,  a  self-governing  na 
tion  of  continental  magnitude  would  have 
been  impossible.  The  divergence  of  political 
ideas  and  feeling  between  the  North  and  the 

157 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

South  was  greatly  intensified  by  the  ignorance 
of  each  section  of  the  point  of  view  and 
habits  of  thought  of  the  other.  The  War 
between  the  States  created  a  nation;  trans 
continental  lines  of  railroads,  habitual  use  of 
the  telegraph,  the  introduction  of  the  tele 
phone,  mailing  facilities,  furnished  the  in 
strumentalities  which  annihilated  distance, 
obliterated  time  and  made  the  continent 
workable.  And  in  recent  years  the  area  of 
neighborhoods  has  been  greatly  extended 
by  trolley  lines,  automobiles,  bicycles,  the 
rural  delivery  of  the  mails. 

Americans  possess  their  continent  in  every 
part,  not  only  by  residence,  but  by  the  habit 
of  travel.  They  make  long  journeys  on  the 
shortest  notice  and  as  a  matter  of  course. 
Every  week  Americans  travel  550,000,000 
miles  on  railroads,  and  every  year  they  spend 
$564,000,000  on  railroad  tickets.  The  auto 
mobile,  which  began  its  career  as  the  toy  of 
the  very  rich,  has  been  speedily  democratized, 
and  its  uses  for  rapid  communication  between 
localities  and  for  local  delivery  have  been 
developed  to  such  an  extent  that  it  is  as 

158 


NATIONAL  LITERATURE 

much  a  part  of  the  general  system  of  commu 
nication  as  the  railroad  or  the  steamboat. 
In  brief,  for  purposes  of  travel,  the  continent 
is  no  larger  than  was  New  England  fifty  years 
ago ;  and  for  purposes  of  communication  of 
knowledge  and  ideas  it  has  become  a  neigh 
borhood. 

Sectional  America  expressed  its  mind  and 
revealed  its  spirit  in  a  literature  which, 
while  not  of  the  first  importance  judged  by 
universal  standards,  revealed  talent  of  a  high 
order  and  a  rich  content  of  varied  experi 
ence  ;  what  has  National  America  achieved  in 
the  field  of  spiritual  and  artistic  expression 
and  in  what  degree  does  its  internal  commerce 
of  thought  rival  its  commercial  development 
and  unify  the  many  minds  of  its  people  ? 
At  the  close  of  the  war  two  poets  of  strikingly 
contrasted  ideals  and  conditions  began  to 
make  themselves  heard.  Many  of  the  older 
poets  were  still  writing,  and  the  tradition  of 
the  New  England  group  and  of  Poe  had 
established,  not  only  a  standard  of  workman 
ship,  but  had  identified  poetry  in  the  mind  of 
the  country  with  certain  principles  of  selec- 

159 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

tion  of  subjects  proper  for  poetic  treatment, 
and  with  a  dignity  of  manner  which  had 
acquired  a  professional  authority. 

The  appearance  of  Walt  Whitman  gave  the 
literary  proprieties  a  distinct  shock,  and,  as 
often  happens  in  the  case  of  men  whose 
genius  is  in  excess  of  their  training  and  taste, 
his  eccentricities  attracted  the  attention  of 
the  many,  while  his  imagination,  which  had 
a  quality  new  in  American  literature,  was 
recognized  by  few.  To  the  sharp  criticism 
of  his  neglect  of  form  and  his  lack  of  reticence 
—  much  of  which  was  eminently  sound  and 
just  —  Whitman  was  indifferent.  He  was 
without  social  or  educational  background ; 
he  had  never  been  in  a  university  atmosphere ; 
literary  and  social  traditions  did  not  exist 
for  him ;  what  had  been  said  and  the  way  in 
which  it  had  been  said  were  matters  of  indif 
ference  to  him;  his  only  concern  was  to  give 
free  expression  of  his  own  personality.  With 
nonchalant  ease  he  began  with  the  declara 
tion  "I  celebrate  myself,"  and  this  celebration 
went  on  to  the  day  of  his  death.  He  was  the 
son  of  a  mechanic,  lived  in  the  neighborhood 

160 


NATIONAL  LITERATURE 

of  New  York,  attended  the  public  schools, 
read  novels  omnivorously,  and  also  the  English 
Bible,  Shakespeare,  Ossian  and  such  trans 
lations  as  came  his  way  of  the  Greek  tragedies, 
the  Nibelungenlied,  Dante  and  a  few  Oriental 
poems.  He  had  little  formal  training,  but 
acquaintance  with  some  of  the  masters  of 
universal  literature.  He  lived  not  far  from 
the  sea  and  early  felt  its  fascination. 

He  loved  association  with  men  of  primitive 
vigor  and  habits,  and  comradeship  was  his 
habit  as  well  as  his  social  ideal.  He  spent 
much  time  in  the  streets,  and  on  the  ferries 
that  then,  in  great  numbers,  crossed  the  two 
rivers  between  which  the  city  of  New  York 
lies ;  he  became  a  printer  and  journalist  and 
combined  both  occupations  with  a  roving 
disposition ;  he  learned  at  first  hand  the  work 
ing  people  in  many  parts  of  the  country. 
During  the  war  he  served  as  a  volunteer  army 
nurse,  and  endeared  himself  to  many  men  in 
the  ranks  by  his  gentleness,  patience  and  the 
quality  of  comradeship  to  which  he  gave  so 
much  space  in  his  verse.  Impaired  health 
made  active  work  impossible,  and  Whitman's 

161 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

closing  years  were  spent  in  busy  idleness ; 
he  was  cared  for  by  devoted  friends,  writing 
when  the  mood  seized  him,  discussing  his 
contemporaries  and  their  work  with  great 
freedom,  and  showing  himself  on  occasions 
of  literary  interest.  His  disciples  were  few 
in  numbers,  but  of  an  aggressive  spirit  of  de 
votion;  the  country  at  large  recognizes  his 
genius,  but  has  never  taken  him  to  its  heart. 
The  fundamental  thought  in  his  work  is 
his  conception  of  Democracy  as  a  vast  brother 
hood,  in  which  all  men  are  on  an  equality, 
irrespective  of  individual  traits  and  qualities. 
There  is  nothing  finer  in  him  than  his  passion 
for  comradeship;  in  his  idealization  of  the 
fellowship  between  man  and  man  he  not  only 
sounded  some  sincere  notes,  but  he  struck 
out  some  great  lines  in  the  heat  of  a  feeling 
which  seems  always  to  have  had  quick  access 
to  his  imagination.  To  this  all-embracing 
affection,  so  deeply  rooted  in  his  conception 
of  the  democratic  order,  he  devotes  a  large 
group  of  poems.  His  friends  of  the  spirit  were 
not  chosen  by  any  principle  of  taste;  they 
are  chiefly  "powerful  uneducated  persons." 

162 


NATIONAL  LITERATURE 

It  cannot  be  said  with  justice  that  Whitman 
erases  all  moral  distinctions  and  rejects  en 
tirely  the  scale  of  spiritual  values ;  but  it 
is  quite  certain  that  he  blurs  them,  and  re 
duces  his  world  to  unity  by  putting  aside 
the  principle  of  selection.  His  underlying 
religious  conception  of  life  is  essentially  Ori 
ental,  and  dates  back  to  the  time  before  the 
idea  of  personality  had  been  clearly  grasped. 
This  conception  Whitman  does  not  consistently 
apply,  for  he  lays  tremendous  emphasis  on 
"powerful  uneducated  persons";  but  it  is 
wrought  into  his  presentation  of  the  demo 
cratic  order  of  society. 

Whitman  was  a  pathfinder,  and  his  joy  in 
the  new  world  of  human  experience  he  ex 
plored  no  one  would  take  from  him.  It 
will  be  seen  some  day  that  there  was  a  true 
prophetic  strain  in  him ;  and  that  he  marked 
the  beginning,  not  of  a  new  kind  of  literature, 
but  of  a  new  and  national  stage  of  literary 
development  in  America.  In  his  verse  the 
sections  disappear  and  the  Nation  comes  into 
view ;  the  provinces  fade  and  the  continent 
defines  itself.  It  is  man  at  work  over  a 

163 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

continent  that  stirs  him;  he  celebrates  few 
persons;  Lincoln  alone  seems  to  have  moved 
him  profoundly;  even  when  he  celebrates 
himself,  it  is  as  an  incarnation  and  embodi 
ment  of  human  qualities  and  experiences. 

While  Whitman  was  making  a  system  out 
of  the  confused  movement  of  Democracy, 
Sidney  Lanier,  in  life  and  in  verse,  was  giving 
the  old-time  quality  of  distinction  fresh  and 
modern  illustration.  A  Southerner  by  birth ; 
of  gentle  breeding ;  a  student  at  a  small  local 
college;  a  soldier  in  the  Confederate  army; 
captured  and  imprisoned  by  the  Federal 
troops;  released  without  resources  and  walking 
the  long  distance  to  his  home;  trying  the 
occupations  of  clerk  and  teacher  in  a  vain 
search  for  his  vocation ;  happily  married  to 
a  woman  who  gave  him  the  sustaining  com 
radeship  of  complete  understanding  and  de 
votion  ;  early  developing  pulmonary  weakness 
and  fighting  for  his  life  with  indomitable  pa 
tience  and  desperate  courage, — Lanier  found 
at  last,  in  the  Johns  Hopkins  University, 
opportunities  of  study  and  of  work.  He  was 
an  accomplished  musician  in  the  theory  as 

164 


NATIONAL  LITERATURE 

well  as  in  the  practice  of  the  art,  and  he  became 
an  expert  in  knowledge  of  English  literature, 
especially  of  the  early  texts.  An  appoint 
ment  as  lecturer  in  English  at  the  University 
gave  him  financial  support  and  more  leisure 
for  writing.  In  his  "  Science  of  English  Verse  " 
the  thoroughness  of  his  methods  and  the 
great  importance  he  attached  to  music,  in 
the  technical  sense,  in  versification,  were 
clearly  shown.  His  passion  for  music  and 
his  conviction  that  it  furnished  the  key  to 
English  verse  seriously  affected  the  spon 
taneity  and  natural  melody  of  his  own  poetry. 
His  technical  knowledge  gave  his  verse  at 
times  an  intellectual  rather  than  a  verbal 
perfection,  and  only  in  a  few  pieces  does  his 
genius  find  free  and  musical  expression. 

For  he  had  genius  of  a  kind  which  was  new 
in  American  poetry.  Other  poets  had  in 
vested  the  aspects  of  the  seasons,  the  forms  of 
work  in  the  fields,  seedtime  and  harvest, 
with  poetic  significance;  Lanier  had  the 
sense  of  the  deep,  moving  life  of  things,  of  the 
faint  stirrings  of  growth  individually  inaudible 
but  collectively  musical,  of  the  arching  sky 

165 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

which  sends  across  the  marshes  waves  of 
color,  and  of  the  atmosphere  in  which  the 
soul  of  a  landscape  seems  to  brood  over  it. 
The  group  of  poems  called  "The  Marshes  of 
Glynn"  are  in  curious  contrast  with  New 
England  poetry.  The  solitude  and  mystery 
of  those  moving  stretches  of  live-oaks,  swaying 
grasses,  murmuring  leaves, 

"  low  couched  along  the  sea," 
are  inviolable,  and  yet  they  seem,  in  the  poet's 
vision,  like  a  beautiful,  many  colored  parable 
of  human  condition  and  destiny.  In  his 
song  of  the  "Corn"  the  vital  processes  of 
nature  are  notated,  so  to  speak,  with  a  pene 
tration  which  searches  their  very  roots  in 
the  secrecy  of  mother]  earth,  and  registers, 
in  the  same  moment,  the  long,  slow  waves 
of  sound  which  sweep  over  great  fields  when 
the  winds  pass.  Lanier  said  of  Poe  that  he 
knew  too  little ;  it  may  be  said  of  Lanier  that 
he  knew  too  much.  His  knowledge  sometimes 
handicapped  his  spontaneity;  and  his  verse 
became  scientific  in  its  precision  of  statement. 
But  he  died  young ;  he  had  very  noble  quali 
ties  of  nature  and  of  mind,  and  he  must  be 

166 


NATIONAL  LITERATURE 

counted  one  of  the  most  original  American 
poets. 

In  Whitman  and  Lanier  one  is  aware  of  a 
larger  movement  of  imagination,  a  new-world 
air  of  freedom  and  space.  The  most  obvious 
fact  in  the  history  of  American  writing  since 
National  America  was  born  is  the  extension  of 
literary  interest  and  expression.  The  working 
and  publishing  centers  for  writers,  as  for 
artists,  are  still  Boston  and  New  York ;  but 
the  whole  continent  makes  contributions  of 
books  and  pictures  to  these  centers  of  distri 
bution.  In  the  field  of  fiction  especially 
there  has  come  into  being  a  series  of  studies  — 
a  national  come'die  humaine  —  as  comprehen 
sive  of  local  character  and  as  rich  in  variety 
of  temperament  and  habit  as  the  nation. 

The  writing  of  the  Provincial  Period,  which 
lasted  until  the  appearance  of  Irving,  Long 
fellow  and  Bryant,  was  crude  in  form  and  imi 
tative  in  spirit ;  that  of  the  Sectional  Period, 
which  lasted  from  about  1820  to  the  close  of 
the  War  between  the  States  in  1865,  was  on 
a  high  plane  of  workmanship  and  breathed 
a  lofty  spirit  of  independence  and  faith  in 

167 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

human  endeavor.  But  it  was  largely  under 
the  influence  of  English  tradition  and  example ; 
it  was  the  literature  of  a  people  setting  out 
boldly  and  confidently  to  try  the  experiment 
of  Democracy,  but  with,  as  yet,  little  con 
ception  of  the  magnitude  of  the  task;  a 
people  with  the  high  aspiration,  the  entire 
self-confidence,  the  proud  and  sometimes 
insolent  consciousness  of  strength,  which  are 
characteristics  of  youth.  The  Nation  had  an 
abiding  faith  in  its  destiny,  but  it  had  not 
taken  possession  of  the  continent,  it  had  not 
faced  the  problems  of  a  complex  and  swiftly 
developing  prosperity  and  of  the  sudden  influx 
of  races  bred  under  radically  different  con 
ditions  :  in  a  word,  the  literature  of  Sectional 
America  was  the  literature  of  a  people  which 
had  not  yet  found  itself. 

Since  the  close  of  the  war  which  established 
the  Nation  as  the  supreme  political  power, 
the  American  people  have  been  coming  to  self- 
realization  through  knowledge  of  their  history 
and  through  recognition  of  the  grave  problems 
which  confront  them.  One  of  the  striking  facts 
in  the  American  life  of  the  last  forty  years 

168 


NATIONAL  LITERATURE 

has  been  the  growth  of  the  historical  spirit 
and  the  widespread  interest  in  the  begin 
nings  of  the  Nation.  A  historical  literature 
of  lasting  value  had  come  into  existence 
during  the  Sectional  period ;  but  it  is  sig 
nificant  that,  with  a  single  notable  excep 
tion,  it  dealt  with  foreign  subjects.  In 
point  of  style  it  had  great  charm,  because  it 
was  the  work  of  men  of  literary  rather  than 
of  scientific  or  archaeological  training.  Irving's 
residence  in  Spain  bore  fruit  in  an  account  of 
''The  Conquest  of  Granada,"  the  "Voyages 
and  Discoveries  of  Columbus  "  and  in  the 
"Legends  of  The  Conquest  of  Spain,"  con 
ceived  in  the  romantic  spirit  and  written  in 
a  picturesque  style.  His  biographies  of 
Columbus,  of  Mahomet,  of  Goldsmith  and  of 
Washington  are  delightful  footnotes  to  his 
tory.  Prescott,  a  man  of  winning  personality, 
whose  blindness  gave  his  work  a  heroic  qual 
ity,  was  also  drawn  to  subjects  of  romantic 
interest  and  told  the  story  of  the  reign  of 
"Ferdinand  and  Isabella,"  of  "The  Conquest 
of  Mexico"  and  of  Peru  with  the  vivid 
interest  of  a  novelist.  Motley,  a  diplomatist 

169 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

and  scholar,  found  themes  congenial  to  Ameri 
cans  in  the  heroic  age  of  the  Dutch  Republic 
and  the  United  Netherlands;  Bancroft,  who 
also  had  experience  as  a  diplomatist,  wrote 
the  first  elaborate  history  of  the  United  States 
in  ten  volumes;  a  work  based  on  patient 
research,  but  written  in  a  provincial  style. 

It  was  reserved  for  Parkman,  a  half -blind 
scholar  and  a  lover  of  roses,  to  sketch  with 
vigorous  and  picturesque  hand  the  local 
background  of  American  history  in  his  account 
of  Indian  life  and  organization,  and  his 
brilliant  story  of  the  struggle  between  England 
and  France  for  supremacy  in  America;  a 
struggle  as  momentous  in  its  consequences  as 
the  War  of  the  Revolution  and  possibly  of 
more  decisive  importance. 

Americans  had  been  too  busy  dealing  with 
the  present  and  making  ready  for  the  future 
to  pay  much  attention  to  the  past,  and  many 
parts  of  the  country  were  without  a  past. 
But  the  War  between  the  States  definitely 
marked  the  end  of  an  era,  and  closed  a  long 
chapter  in  the  development  of  the  country. 
Americans  had  talked  heroically  of  their 

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NATIONAL  LITERATURE 

struggles ;  now  they  turned  to  a  more  serious 
study  of  their  experiences  with  a  desire  to 
formulate  the  principles  on  which  they  had 
acted,  often  instinctively,  and  to  understand 
what  had  been  achieved  and  how  it  had  been 
accomplished.  Local  history,  which  had  been 
neglected  save  in  a  few  localities,  began  to  be 
studied  with  zeal ;  historical  sites  were  marked 
by  monuments ;  historical  societies  were  or 
ganized  in  all  parts  of  the  country;  and  the 
teaching  of  history  in  the  universities,  which 
had  been  largely  formal  and  of  minor  impor 
tance  in  the  scheme  of  study,  became  a  major 
subject;  departments  took  the  place  of  the 
single  professor,  and  research  work  the  place 
of  instruction  from  textbooks.  In  the  univer 
sities  of  the  Central  West  the  investigation 
of  local  origins  was  prosecuted  with  enthusi 
asm  ;  on  the  Pacific  coast  the  early  Spanish 
records  were  rescued  and  put  in  shape  for 
future  historians ;  in  the  Johns  Hopkins  Uni 
versity  laboratory  methods  were  used  to  con 
struct  contemporary  history  by  the  study  of 
magazines  and  newspapers. 

The   popular    study    of   history   has    been 
171 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

carried  on,  not  only  in  the  public  schools,  but 
by  clubs  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  by  lectures, 
by  public  commemorations  of  historical  events 
and  anniversaries,  by  historical  pageants, 
often  of  artistic  merit.  Meanwhile  the  libra 
ries  have  been  enriched  by  many  historical 
works  of  value ;  studies  of  aspects  of  American 
history,  of  epochs,  of  administrations,  of  wars, 
of  pioneering  and  settlement;  of  States, 
towns,  counties  and  villages ;  and  half-a-dozen 
histories  of  the  United  States  have  told  the 
story  for  students  and  for  popular  reading  as 
well.  Schouler,  McMaster,  Adams,  Rhodes, 
Fiske,  have  written  the  history  of  the  United 
States  from  different  points  of  view,  and  a 
large  group  of  scholars  have  reenforced  these 
broader  surveys  by  studies  of  narrower  scope 
but  of  lasting  importance ;  and  the  footnotes 
to  this  national  work  in  history  in  the  form 
of  biography  have  been  almost  numberless. 

In  this  new  interest  in  the  beginnings  of 
the  nation  the  present  was  not  overlooked; 
on  the  contrary,  there  appeared  in  different 
parts  of  the  country,  almost  simultaneously, 
a  group  of  writers  of  fiction  who  brought  the 

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NATIONAL  LITERATURE 

short  story  to  a  perfection  of  form  and  of 
style  not  surpassed  in  any  other  literature. 
In  character  drawing,  in  the  delicate  art  of 
sketching  a  background  which  has  a  vital 
relation  to  the  story,  in  beauty  of  diction, 
many  of  these  stories  belong  not  only  to 
American  but  to  universal  literature.  Much 
has  been  said  in  America  about  "the  great 
American  novel";  the  story  that  shall  put 
between  covers  the  very  life  of  the  nation  in 
dramatic  terms.  That  novel  will  never  be 
written,  because  it  is  impossible  to  write 
it.  "Vanity  Fair"  is  a  work  of  genius,  but 
only  a  little  section  of  English  society  gets 
into  it,  and  the  nation  is  mute  in  its  pages. 
"Pere  Goriot"  is  also  a  masterpiece,  but  it  is 
not  even  French  in  a  large  sense;  it  is  Parisian. 
Tolstoi's  "War  and  Peace"  comes  nearer 
being  a  great  national  novel,  but  it  is  already 
the  story  of  a  past  age  and  of  a  Russia  which 
has  passed  through  radical  changes.  In  a 
society  in  such  different  stages  of  develop 
ment  as  the  American,  and  affected  by  such 
a  great  variety  of  local  conditions,  a  novel 
which  shall  present  the  form  and  substance  of 

173 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

the  nation's  character  and  manners  is  ob 
viously  beyond  the  range  of  possibility ;  this 
all-inclusive  story  demands  the  scope  of  a 
comedie  humaine.  Such  a  vital  report  of 
the  form  and  color  of  their  life  Americans 
possess  in  their  short  stories,  in  which,  al 
though  their  literature  still  lacks  the  years  of 
a  full  century,  they  have  produced  work  of 
the  highest  quality. 

There  had  been  writers  of  fiction  in  the 
South  before  Poe  wrote  his  stories  of  mystery ; 
but  he  first  showed  a  high  degree  of  artistic 
power,  and  of  their  kind  these  stories  remain 
unsurpassed;  but  Poe  was  not  of  a  locality, 
not  even  of  a  nation ;  his  imagination  created 
its  own  world  and  his  figures  are  visionary  and 
spectral;  they  are  like  disembodied  spirits. 
There  is  no  part  of  America  in  which  men  and 
women  are  less  elusive  and  generic  and  more 
human  and  individualistic  than  in  the  South ; 
a  section  in  which  the  code  of  honor  has 
been  held  at  times  in  higher  respect  than 
the  law,  and  sentiment  and  feeling  had  far 
more  appeal  than  reason. 

Life  on  the  plantations  supplied  a  large 
174 


NATIONAL  LITERATURE 

margin  of  leisure,  respect  for  women  became 
a  cult  as  in  the  days  of  chivalry,  but  had 
its  root  in  absolute  purity  of  sex  relations ; 
and  purity  and  leisure  created  an  atmosphere 
of  romance  which  blurred  the  hard  outlines 
of  slavery  with  a  luminous  mist.  The  open 
door,  the  open  hand,  and  formality  of  manner 
tempered  with  winning  cordiality,  invested 
the  old  southern  society  with  great  charm. 
When  the  present  generation  of  southern 
writers  appeared  on  the  stage,  this  social  order 
had  become  a  thing  of  the  past,  but  it  was 
still  visible  in  a  soft  sunset  light.  In  such 
stories  as  "Meh  Lady"  and  "Mars  Chan," 
by  Mr.  Page,  a  Virginian,  this  vanished  society 
lives  again  in  sentiment  and  ideal ;  while  the 
Virginian  moving  across  the  mountains  and  be 
coming  'a  frontiersman  in  Kentucky  reappears 
in  the  beautiful  art  of  Mr.  James  Lane  Allen. 
In  the  farther  South  the  nai've  local  elegance 
of  the  French  manner,  become  captivatingly 
quaint  in  the  French  quarter  in  New  Orleans 
where  the  Mississippi  flows  into  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  is  to  be  found  in  Mr.  Cable's  "Old 
Creole  Days,"  and  "Madam  Delphine." 

175 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

Georgia,  a  state  of  more  primitive  types,  has 
furnished  homely  humor  and  strongly  marked 
types  of  native  character  to  fiction ;  and  Joel 
Chandler  Harris,  coming  on  the  scene  while 
the  negro  folk  tales  were  still  told  to  children, 
made  "Uncle  Remus"  as  famous  in  America  as 
Rip  Van  Winkle ;  and  the  stories  of  the  inimi 
table  humor,  pathos  and  cunning  of  the  slave 
put  into  the  mouth  of  this  old  negro  form, 
perhaps,  the  most  original  American  contribu 
tion  not  only  to  the  literature  of  the  last  two 
decades,  but  to  folklore  as  well.  The  moun 
taineers  of  Tennessee  have  been  drawn  against 
their  striking  mountain  background  by  Miss 
Murfree  and  Mr.  Fox. 

Very  early  in  this  period  Bret  Harte  wrote 
the  rough  romance  of  the  mining  camp  with 
a  fresh  unconventionality  and  an  energy 
of  imagination  which  made  certain  kinds  of 
frontier  life  familiar  to  the  Nation.  Samuel 
Clemens,  better  known  as  "Mark  Twain," 
in  his  first  and  most  original  books,  "Huckle 
berry  Finn,"  "Tom  Sawyer"  and  "Life  on 
the  Mississippi,"  portrayed  life  on  the  great 
river  with  a  vital  art  and  overflowing  humor 

176 


NATIONAL  LITERATURE 

only  temporarily  eclipsed  by  his  more  popular 
but  less  original  later  work.  The  Far  West 
of  yesterday  was  fortunately  seen  in  the  last 
days  of  the  grazing  age  by  Mr.  Wister,  who  has 
reported  it  with  zest  and  sympathy;  and, 
avoiding  the  melodramatic,  has  drawn  the 
cowboy  with  his  elemental  virtues  and  vices. 
The  vigor  of  the  Central  West,  unconventional 
but  overflowing  with  helpfulness  and  humor, 
radically  democratic  in  spirit  and  optimistic 
in  temper,  has  found  capable  recorders  in 
Mr.  Garland,  Mr.  Herrick  and  other  novelists. 

In  New  England  there  has  been  a  report  of 
the  various  types  of  character  and  of  changing 
social  and  personal  ideals  of  such  vitality  and 
charm  as  to  worthily  supplement  the  work 
of  the  earlier  writers  of  this  section.  Miss 
Jewett  by  her  quiet  humor,  her  unobtrusive 
gift  for  character  drawing  and  the  refinement 
of  her  style,  has  become  an  American  classic. 
Mrs.  Mary  Wilkins  Freeman  has  reported 
New  England  individualism  in  terms  of  modern 
character  with  realistic  skill  relieved  by  humor. 

In  the  cosmopolitan  field  Mr.  James  has 
written  the  short  story  with  subtilty  of  insight, 

177 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

and  Mr.  Howells,  his  contemporary,  with  less 
elaboration  of  manner  and  more  kindly  and 
pervasive  humor,  has  reported  the  foibles  of 
one  type  of  American  woman  with  delightful 
skill. 

The  short  story,  while  as  exacting  in  its 
demands  on  the  writer  as  the  novel,  imposes 
limitations  of  material  and  of  manner  from 
which  the  novelist  escapes;  and  the  painter 
of  the  major  motives  of  American  life  needs 
a  large  canvas.  Between  Hawthorne  and 
Mr.  Howells  there  was  a  vast  production  of 
mediocre  novels,  with  one  notable  exception; 
Mrs.  Stowe  wrote  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  at 
white  heat ;  she  was  a  woman  of  vivid  imagi 
nation,  of  eloquent  and  flowing  style  and  of 
strong  convictions,  but  she  was  very  imper 
fectly  trained  in  her  art.  The  novel  was  a 
picture,  and  not  a  distorted  picture,  of  slavery 
in  its  kindly  patriarchal  and  its  harsh  indus 
trial  aspects.  The  anti-slavery  agitation 
was  becoming  widespread ;  bitter  feeling  had 
been  engendered  and  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin" 
came  at  the  psychological  moment  and  in 
tensified  the  feeling.  The  strikingly  dramatic 

178 


NATIONAL  LITERATURE 

treatment  of  the  very  human  material  out  of 
which  the  story  was  made,  the  intensity 
of  feeling  which  imparted  to  it  the  driving 
force  of  a  great  passion,  gave  the -story  cur 
rency  not  only  in  America  but  in  nearly  all 
the  languages  of  Europe;  and  until  Mark 
Twain's  books  appeared  no  American  book 
was  so  widely  read. 

Mrs.  Stowe's  novel  was  carried  into  popu 
larity  by  the  momentum  of  a  great  reform 
as  well  as  by  its  own  force ;  but  it  was  not  a 
work  of  art ;  on  the  contrary,  it  was  marred 
by  much  crudity  of  form.  The  early  work 
of  Mr.  Howells  and  Mr.  James,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  delightfully  artistic.  Both  were 
men  of  modern  education;  interested  in 
modern  rather  than  in  the  classic  literatures  in 
which  the  earlier  writers  had  been  trained; 
and  both  were  concerned  with  American  life 
in  its  contemporaneous  aspects.  Mr.  Howells 
has  sketched,  with  a  light  hand  and  with 
kindly  humor,  the  manners  and  ways  of 
the  American  woman  of  the  very  feminine 
type;  but  he  has  also,  in  "The  Rise  of 
Silas  Lapham,"  painted  the  portrait  of  the 

179 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

self-made  man,  of  whom  there  are  so  many  in 
America. 

Mr.  James  lived  in  London  for  many  years 
and  saw  his  fellow  countrymen,  and  especially 
his  fellow  countrywomen,  against  a  back 
ground  which  threw  their  ways  of  thinking, 
of  acting  and  of  speaking  into  very  effective 
relief.  He  belongs  to  a  family  which  has 
won  distinction  in  philosophy  and  the  psy 
chological  interest  of  his  stories  has  of  late 
obscured  their  dramatic  interest.  He  has, 
however,  a  rare  talent  for  characterization 
and  he  is  a  master  of  the  more  subtle  uses  of 
language.  He  has  distinction  of  manner 
rather  than  the  grand  manner,  and  his  large 
canvases  are  painted  with  the  refinement 
of  cabinet  pieces. 

There  are  in  America  to-day  a  number  of 
novelists  of  high  attainment  as  artists  and 
there  are  more  whose  work  is  stamped  by 
vitality  and  force  rather  than  by  skill.  The 
older  and  more  conventional  society  of  the 
East  has  found  in  such  novels  as  "The  House 
of  Mirth"  studies  of  that  small  subdivision 
popularly  known  as  "the  Smart  Set"  of  a 

180 


NATIONAL  LITERATURE 

veracity  so  minute  and  unsparing  as  to 
produce  the  effect  of  satire ;  while  stories 
of  a  broader  outlook  and  of  a  freer  manner, 
like  "The  Awakening  of  Helena  Richie" 
and  "The  Iron  Woman,"  have  dramatized 
the  problems  of  human  experience  with  vital 
skill.  The  afterglow  of  earlier  and  local 
social  ideals  in  a  small  community  is  reflected 
in  the  pages  of  Mr.  Wister's  "Lady  Balti 
more";  and  the  broad  humor,  the  elemental 
passions,  the  full-blooded  and  unashamed 
humanity  of  the  frontier,  in  his  story  of  far- 
western  life,  "The  Virginian."  In  a  novel  of 
Kansas  life,  "A  Certain  Rich  Man,"  the 
biography,  not  only  of  a  pioneer  but  of  a 
community,  may  be  read. 

Stories  of  adventure  are  still  written  by 
Americans  in  great  numbers,  but  the  heroes  of 
these  tales  are  engineers,  miners,  railroad 
builders  and  organizers  of  great  enterprises; 
and  for  the  last  two  decades  the  human 
aspects  of  what  is  called  "big  business"  have 
received  increasing  attention  from  novelists. 
In  a  series  of  three  novels,  only  two  of  which 
were  finished  before  his  death,  Frank  Norris 

181 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

set  out  to  write  in  terms  of  human  expe 
rience  the  epic  of  wheat;  its  production  in 
the  vast  fields  of  the  Southwest,  its  passage 
through  the  vortex  of  the  exchange  in  Chicago, 
its  distribution  to  the  far  ends  of  the  earth. 
In  the  hands  of  a  young  man  the  effort  was 
premature,  but  it  was  significant  of  the  present 
tendency  in  fiction  to  dramatize  the  tremen 
dous  forces  evoked  by  American  conditions, 
their  reaction  on  character  and  life,  and  the 
problems  they  have  created. 

Americans  are  much  given  to  the  reading 
of  fiction,  and  novels  are  manufactured  in 
large  quantities  by  facile  writers  to  meet  the 
popular  demand.  These  stories  are,  as  a 
rule,  morally  clean,  and  they  are  not  devoid 
of  invention  and  'dramatic  situation;  but 
they  are  imitative  and  crude  and  have  no 
place  in  any  account  of  American  literature. 

The  passing  of  the  older  group  of  poets  was 
coincident  with  great  changes  in  the  national 
life;  a  wave  of  unprecedented  prosperity 
rolled  over  the  country,  vast  enterprises  were 
projected  and  carried  through,  the  engineer 
and  the  financier  became  the  most  prominent 

183 


NATIONAL  LITERATURE 

figures  in  the  arena.  Education  took  a  prac 
tical  turn,  technical  and  trade  schools  multi 
plied,  and  scientific  education  began  to  lead 
literary  education  in  popular  interest.  The 
war  with  Spain  for  the  liberation  of  Cuba, 
with  the  unforeseen  appearance  of  the  Ameri 
can  flag  in  the  Far  East,  stirred  the  imagination 
of  the  Nation,  not  with  dreams  of  conquest  or 
with  military  ambition,  but  with  a  sense  of 
national  solidarity  and  of  national  responsi 
bilities.  Without  surrendering  the  policy  of 
avoiding  entanglements  with  other  nations 
and  keeping  out  of  the  circle  of  international 
politics  in  the  Old  World,  defined  by  Washing 
ton,  the  Nation  awoke  to  the  consciousness  of 
world-wide  relations  and  of  the  responsibilities 
which  came  with  such  relations.  The  enor 
mous  development  of  business  and  the  rapid 
accumulation  of  capital  created  problems 
new  to  American  life. 

Meantime  the  whole  world  was  moving 
with  dramatic  rapidity.  Japan  had  taken 
her  place  on  the  stage  of  world  activity  with 
startling  suddenness,  and  in  her  brilliant 
achievements  in  arms  and  industry  Americans 

183 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

were  quick  to  see  the  dawn  of  a  new  day  in 
the  East,  the  emergence  of  influences  and 
ideals  which  will  temper  and  enrich  western 
civilization.  The  story  of  humanity,  told  in 
serial  form  in  the  newspapers  day  by  day, 
became  of  absorbing  interest.  The  literature 
of  economics,  sociology,  government,  politics, 
reform  grew  rapidly  to  large  proportions, 
and  for  the  time  being  books  of  knowledge, 
of  political  and  social  philosophy,  hold  the 
attention  of  the  Nation  and  books  of  purely 
literary  quality  are  given  less  prominence. 
This  does  not  mean  that  Americans  are  losing 
their  inherited  idealism;  for  the  movements 
which  are  fast  realigning  political  parties  in 
the  United  States  express  the  growing  de 
termination  to  bring  both  politics  and  business 
into  greater  harmony  with  political  and 
social  ideals. 

Poetry,  meantime,  has  less  vogue ;  largely, 
it  may  be  suspected,  because  few  poets  have 
not  yet  spoken  with  compelling  power  the 
words  the  people  are  longing  to  hear.  In  the 
generation  which  followed  the  War  between 
the  States  there  was  a  group  of  poets  whose 

184 


NATIONAL  LITERATURE 

feeling  for  artistic  qualities  was  keener  than 
their  predecessors;  a  great  reform  had  been 
carried  to  completion  and  a  period  of  ethical 
relaxation  and  ease  of  mood  followed.  Of 
this  period  perhaps  the  country  will  remember 
longest  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich,  a  poet  whom 
the  French  would  have  called  a  "little  master," 
so  exquisite  was  his  craftsmanship,  so  delicate 
his  art.  Mr.  Moody,  Mr.  Woodberry  and 
Dr.  Van  Dyke  have  enriched  American  poetry 
with  work  of  lasting  charm  and  vitality. 

Other  poets  there  were,  bred  under  academic 
influence,  whose  work  has  notable  beauty 
but  lacks  the  appeal  to  the  popular  imagina 
tion.  In  the  youngest  generation  of  poets 
now  beginning  to  make  themselves  heard  new 
phases  of  life  appear;  often  presented,  it  is 
true,  in  the  harsh  phrase  of  the  reformer, 
but  indicative  of  a  shifting  of  interest  from 
classical  and  traditional  themes  to  the  human 
needs  and  aspirations  of  to-day.  The  themes 
of  poetry  are  rarely  wholly  new,  but  the 
deepening  passion  for  social  justice  finds 
expression  in  protest  against  inhuman  con 
ditions  of  life  and  work,  and  in  dramatic 

185 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

appeals  for  a  larger  regard  for  the  welfare  of 
the  workers.  American  poetry  has  always 
been  idealistic,  and  has  interpreted  national 
opportunity  in  terms  of  spiritual  and  moral 
responsibility ;  to-day  it  has  become  altruistic 
and  its  themes  are  justice  for  the  worker, 
international  peace  and  human  brotherhood. 
This  newer  poetry  has  yet  to  prove  its  claims 
to  be  heard  by  the  manner  as  well  as  the  matter 
of  its  message ;  but  it  is  full  of  promise.  The 
vigorous  recent  production  of  poetic  plays 
may  be  characterized  in  the  same  words. 
Since  the  days  of  Irving  the  essay  has  been  a 
form  of  literature  congenial  to  the  American 
type  of  mind.  Emerson,  Lowell,  Holmes, 
Thoreau,  Curtis  used  it  as  a  medium  for 
criticism,  for  informal  philosophy,  for  ethical 
and  social  teaching.  Its  best  traditions  of 
sanity  of  thought,  humor  and  soundness  of 
forms  are  continued  to-day  in  the  work  of 
Mr.  Burroughs,  of  Messrs.  Bliss  Perry,  Frank 
Colby,  Brander  Matthews,  Henry  D.  Sedgwick, 
Dr.  Van  Dyke  and  Dr.  Crothers  and  others. 
In  power  of  analysis  and  intellectual  force 
and  integrity  Mr.  Brownell's  critical  essays 

186 


NATIONAL  LITERATURE 

hold  a  place  by  themselves  in  American  writ 
ing. 

Of  the  many  names  mentioned  in  this  survey 
of  American  literature  as  an  expression  of  the 
American  life  only  half  a  dozen  have  world 
wide  range  :  Cooper,  Poe,  Emerson,  Whitman, 
Mark  Twain.  The  great  body  of  contribu 
tors  to  the  national  literature  are  known  only 
in  their  own  country.  If  one  looks  at  litera 
ture  as  significant  in  the  degree  in  which  it 
produces  masterpieces,  the  American  must 
wait,  as  other  peoples  have  waited,  for  a  more 
complete  fusion  of  the  elements  of  national 
life  and  the  broader  and  deeper  national  con 
sciousness  that  will  come  with  it.  But  if 
one  consider  literature  as  an  expression  of  the 
soul  of  a  people,  American  literature  has 
already,  less  than  a  century  from  its  birth, 
attained  lasting  significance.  It  is  the  spoken 
word  of  a  people  whose  beginning  was  a  great 
adventure,  and  whose  life  has  been  a  great 
toil. 

What  have  their  books  to  tell  us  of  their 
innermost  thoughts  ?  What  sent  them  across 
the  perilous  seas  and  has  kept  them  to  their 

187 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

tasks  ?  Briefly  these  things :  passion  for 
liberty,  sense  of  moral  order  and  responsibility, 
faith  in  God  and  man,  love  of  home  and  of 
Nature ;  and  a  habit  of  humor  born  of  hope, 
of  courage  and  of  the  good  will  of  a  community 
which  has  spread  from  ocean  to  ocean,  but 
still  keeps  the  neighborly  feeling  which  makes 
the  village,  in  time  of  calamity  or  of  need,  one 
family. 


188 


VII 
THE  AMERICAN  IN  ART 

IN  the  pre-Revolutionary  period  there  were 
churches  that  charmed  the  eye  and  conveyed 
a  sense  of  their  uses  to  the  mind  in  Ports 
mouth,  Newport,  New  York,  Wilmington, 
Charleston;  and  there  were  houses  which 
happily  harmonized  material  and  form,  and 
were  suggestive  of  social  background  and 
vistas  of  an  older  social  order,  in  Salem, 
Boston,  Providence,  Bristol,  Newport,  New 
York,  Philadelphia,  Germantown,  Annapolis, 
Richmond,  Charleston,  and  smaller  towns. 
Colonial  architecture  at  its  best  suggested 
a  good  tradition  and  expressed  an  honest 
fact;  it  expressed  history  and  a  sound  rela 
tion  to  the  soil.  It  had  that  ultimate  ele 
gance,  entire  simplicity,  which  was  char 
acteristic  of  the  best  colonial  life,  and  that 
dignity  which  was  the  stateliness  of  the  Old 
modified  by  the  conditions  of  the  New  World. 
The  churches  built  under  the  inspiration  of 

189 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

Sir  Christopher  Wren,  and  the  fine  old  homes, 
of  which  the  Sherborne  house  in  Portsmouth, 
the  Jumel  mansion  in  New  York,  and  Mount 
Vernon,  may  serve  as  examples,  bore  the 
impress  of  a  certain  distinction  of  taste  and 
form  which  were  the  heritage  of  the  few,  but 
of  inestimable  importance  to  the  many,  as 
examples  of  true  American  architecture. 
They  were  as  vitally  related  to  their  surround 
ings  as  are  the  gray  old  great  houses  of  Eng 
land  and  the  square-towered  country  churches 
to  the  low  skies  and  deep  foliage  of  the  ripe 
and  mellow  landscape.  They  constituted, 
with  the  little  group  of  buildings  like  Inde 
pendence  Hall  in  Philadelphia,  a  native  order 
of  building,  adapted,  it  is  true,  but  not 
imitative.  They  stood  for  Provincial  Amer 
ica,  with  its  face  turned  eastward,  and  still 
bound  to  Europe  by  kinship  if  not  by  iden 
tity  of  standards  and  interests. 

Architectural  chaos  came  much  later,  but 
the  empire  of  the  commonplace  had  been 
established  in  all  parts  of  the  country  as 
early  as  1840.  American  writers  had  been 
telling  the  truth  for  many  years  before 

190 


THE  AMERICAN  IN  ART 

later  American  builders  began  to  do  any 
thing  more  radical  than  mumble  a  few  com 
monplaces  ;  when  they  started  out  to  speak 
for  themselves  they  made  sad  work  of  it. 
To  begin  with,  they  did  not  speak  the  truth ; 
they  were  ungrammatical ;  worst  of  all, 
they  were  vulgar.  During  the  period  which 
followed  the  War  between  the  States,  which 
has  been  aptly  called  the  reign  of  terror  in 
American  architecture,  crimes  against  stone, 
wood,  iron,  and  form  of  every  kind  were  per 
petrated,  which  still  cry  aloud  for  vengeance. 
It  was  in  this  period  that  post  offices  and  other 
federal  buildings  were  sown  broadcast  over 
a  helpless  land,  and  ugliness  in  almost  unbro 
ken  monotony  was  set  up  as  a  symbol  of 
public  life.  There  were  a  few  redeeming 
exceptions,  but  for  the  most  part  the  state 
buildings  of  this  period  were  monstrous  of 
fenses  against  public  morals  and  public  taste. 
This  was  the  period,  too,  of  the  so-called 
reconstruction  policy,  which  was  a  shocking 
parody  of  the  sublime  tragedy  of  the  War; 
and  it  is  significant  that  shining  deeds  of 
valor,  and  heroes  whom  youth  and  death 

191 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

had  touched  with  a  double  beauty,  were 
commemorated  at  this  time  with  monuments 
and  statues,  of  many  of  which  it  is  merciful 
to  write  that  they  were  executed  not  in  mal 
ice,  but  in  ignorance.  Never  before,  perhaps, 
has  a  great  sacrifice  found  such  meaningless 
expression  in  monumental  form;  and  it  will 
be  the  pious  task  of  a  later  generation  to  raze 
many  of  these  monuments  to  the  ground, 
and  worthily  commemorate  a  sublime  chapter 
of  national  history. 

During  this  lawless  period  all  sorts  of 
hybrids  were  brought  to  birth,  and  many  still 
remain  to  remind  us  of  our  mortality :  houses 
so  entirely  made  with  hands  that  no  sugges 
tion  of  mind  flows  from  them;  Italian  villas 
(pronounced  with  a  long  /) ;  stone  castles 
with  colonial  additions;  Elizabethan  man 
sions  with  late  Victorian  piazzas  and  veran 
das  ;  structures  of  no  order  but  with  vast 
cupolas;  and,  worst  of  all,  riotous  varia 
tions  of  that  shamefully  abused  Queen  Anne 
house,  which,  in  its  proper  form  and  place, 
has  a  real  relation  to  domestic  life  and 
beauty  of  adaptation. 

192 


THE  AMERICAN  IN  ART 

There  was  admirable  building  in  the  co 
lonial  and  sub-revolutionary  period;  then 
came  the  age  of  the  commonplace  and  the 
monotonously  undistinguished;  to  be  fol 
lowed,  after  a  great  national  crisis,  by  an 
outbreak  of  self-assertion,  which  was  anar 
chistic  in  its  wild  and  truculent  disregard  of 
authority,  principle  and  law;  a  flamboyant 
declaration  of  the  right  of  the  free  American 
citizen  to  make  his  country  as  ugly  as  he 
chose;  a  riot  of  ignorance,  bad  taste,  ex 
travagance,  and  crude  independence. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that 
in  the  darkest  days  of  marble  palaces  with 
painted  iron  columns,  and  of  bastard  Queen 
Anne  cottages  rising  sanguinary  and  osten 
tatious  above  diminutive  lawns,  builders  who 
were  also  architects,  or  architects  who  were 
also  builders,  as  in  the  "elder  days  of  art," 
were  patiently  trying  to  persuade  their  clients 
that  building  was  an  ancient  art  and  not  a 
local  job ;  and  that  an  increasing  number  of 
those  who  were  teachable  in  these  matters 
made  life  tolerable  in  prosperous  communities. 
The  remnant  of  the  elect  increased  not  only 

193 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

in  knowledge,  but  in  influence,  and  the  state 
ment  by  a  well-known  architect  that  Ameri 
can  architecture  was  the  "art  of  covering 
one  thing  with  another  to  imitate  a  third 
thing,  which,  if  genuine,  would  not  be  desir 
able,"  began  to  lose  point.  Upjohn,  Ren- 
wick,  Hunt,  Richardson,  Root,  and  White 
suggest  a  movement  in  education,  and  a  gen 
uine  achievement  in  an  art  which  more  than 
any  other  ought  to  have  in  this  country  a 
hand  as  free  as  its  opportunity  is  great.  If 
vagaries  are  still  seen  in  stone,  wood,  and 
iron,  and  if  the  ready  adapter  and  servile 
imitator  are  still  in  the  land,  there  are  increas 
ing  evidences  of  the  presence  of  the  artist 
and  of  the  patron  who  is  wise  enough  to  g;ive 
him  his  chance. 

American  painting  has  passed  through  gray, 
uneventful  years,  but  it  has  never  known  a 
reign  of  terror. 

It  is  true,  the  earlier  painters  were  English 
rather  than  American,  and  it  is  also  true  that 
they  did  not  rank  with  the  best ;  but  the  best, 
it  ought  to  be  remembered,  were  Reynolds 
and  Gainsborough.  Peale,  Copley,  and  Stuart 

194 


THE  AMERICAN  IN  ART 

made  places  for  themselves  in  the  history  not 
only  of  American,  but  of  English,  art,  though 
their  rank  in  the  colonies  was  much  higher 
than  in  the  mother  country.  To  them  and 
to  their  pupils  we  owe  not  only  a  tradition 
of  sound  workmanship,  but  a  large  group  of 
portraits  which  are  of  immense  social  and 
historic  interest.  They  were  the  most 
graphic  and  vital  historians  of  the  older 
American  society.  It  was  inevitable  that 
they  should  be  English  in  taste  and  manner, 
since  they  were  dealing  almost  entirely  with 
English  faces  at  a  time  when  Americans  were 
still  Englishmen  in  new  surroundings ;  the 
best  service  they  could  render  to  their  con 
temporaries  was  to  make  them  familiar  with 
good  work.  Less  fortunate  artists  who  be 
gan  by  painting  signs  ended  in  several  cases 
by  painting  good  portraits  and  miniatures. 
John  Wesley  Jarvis,  who  was  born  in  England 
and  named  after  his  famous  uncle,  was  taken 
to  Philadelphia  at  an  early  age,  and  received 
his  education  in  the  irregular  manner  of  a 
country  in  which  the  value  of  art  schools  was 
a  matter  of  remote  future  discussion.  "In 

195 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

my  school  days/'  he  writes,  "the  painters  of 
Philadelphia  were  Clark,  a  miniature  painter, 
and  Galagher,  a  painter  of  portraits  and 
signs;  he  was  a  German  who,  with  his  hat 
over  one  eye,  was  more  au  fait  at  walking 
Chestnut  Street  than  at  either  face  or  sign 
painting.  Then  there  was  Jeremiah  Paul, 
who  painted  better  and  would  hop  farther 
than  any  of  them;  another  who  painted 
red  lions  and  black  bears,  as  well  as  beaux 
and  belles,  was  old  Mr.  Pratt,  and  the  last 
that  I  remember  of  that  day  was  Rutter,  an 
honest  sign-painter,  who  never  pretended  or 
aspired  to  paint  the  human  face  divine, 
except  to  hang  on  the  outside  of  a  house; 
these  worthies,  when  work  was  plenty,  flags 
and  fire  buckets  in  demand,  used  to  work 
in  partnership,  and  I,  between  school  hours, 
worked  for  them  all,  delighted  to  have  the 
command  of  a  brush  and  a  paint  pot.  Such 
was  my  introduction  to  the  fine  arts  and  their 
professors."  Copley,  West,  Stuart,  Peale, 
Trumbull,  and  Alls  ton  were  court  painters 
in  ease  of  condition  compared  with  some  of 
their  obscure  fellow-craftsmen  in  the  coun- 

196 


THE  AMERICAN  IN  ART 

try;  and,  taking  into  account  their  limita 
tions  of  temperament,  they  were  not  unequal 
to  their  opportunities. 

There  were  commonplace  painters  between 
the  later  pupils  of  West  and  the  generation  of 
Kensett,  Whittredge,  and  Gifford ;  but  neither 
during  that  period  nor  later  was  there  a  reign 
of  terror  in  American  painting;  there  was, 
on  the  contrary,  a  more  or  less  steady  gain 
in  craftsmanship  and  originality.  Whatever 
may  have  been  the  limitations  of  the  group 
of  gifted  men  who  are  popularly  regarded  as 
belonging  to  the  Hudson  River  School,  they 
were  trained  in  good  traditions,  and  they 
interpreted  the  landscape  of  the  country  for 
the  first  time  with  deep  feeling  and  sympa 
thetic  knowledge.  They  were  men  of  gener 
ous  and  enthusiastic  nature,  and  the  breadth 
and  wildness  of  American  scenery  moved 
them  to  large  artistic  endeavors.  Their  work 
was  done  out  of  doors,  in  a  spirit  of  resolute 
fidelity  to  what  they  saw,  and  with  simplicity 
of  method. 

If  the  vastness  of  scale  of  American  scenery 
appealed  to  Church  and  Bierstadt,  its  poetry 

197 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

was  felt  by  Inness,  Martin,  and  Wyant, 
in  whose  work  there  was  an  individuality  of 
insight  and  of  expression  which  showed  that 
the  apprentice  period  in  American  painting 
was  at  an  end,  and  the  day  of  distinctive 
achievement  at  hand.  Mr.  Vedder  reached 
his  majority  in  1857,  and  with  him  enters  the 
element  of  mystery,  the  suggestion  of  fate, 
into  American  painting.  There  was  nothing 
esoteric  in  his  interpretations  of  figures  and 
faces ;  no  pretense  on  the  part  of  the  artist 
to  the  possession  of  a  secret  cipher,  an  occult 
knowledge,  which  his  art  implied  but  did  not 
betray;  on  the  contrary,  its  most  potent 
suggestiveness  is  the  feeling  it  conveys  that 
the  artist  saw  and  painted  something  as  essen 
tially  unknowable  to  him  as  to  his  most 
intelligent  student.  When  the  illustrations 
to  the  "Rubaiyat"  appeared  in  1887,  Mr. 
Vedder's  work  was  well  known  by  a  few 
lovers  of  art,  but  that  vague  and  cold  col 
lective  person,  "the  general  public,"  succes 
sor  of  the  "gentle  reader,"  had  no  acquaint 
ance  with  it.  The  suggestiveness  and  power 
of  the  pictorial  interpretation  of  Omar  Khay- 

198 


THE  AMERICAN  IN  ART 

yam  deeply  impressed  the  imagination  of  the 
country,  not  only  because  the  manner  was 
novel  and  the  matter  in  striking  contrast  to 
the  prevailing  mood,  but  because  the  form 
was  at  once  simple  and  fundamentally  uni 
fied,  and  obviously  and  broadly  beautified. 
The  work  was  almost  classical  in  its  definite- 
ness,  but  the  richness  of  its  texture,  the 
solidity  of  its  presentation,  the  liberal  use  of 
emblems  and  symbols,  gave  it  a  quality 
remote  from  familiar  things,  and  kept  the 
painter  well  in  front  of  the  philosopher.  In 
the  work  of  Mr.  Vedder,  as  in  that  of  Inness 
and  Martin,  the  imagination  began  to  move 
along  original  lines  and  to  disclose  a  fresh 
and  powerful  impulse. 

In  1862  William  Morris  Hunt  settled  in 
Boston,  and  began  a  career  which  was  too 
short  to  fulfill  the  hopes  it  awakened.  If 
there  was  something  lacking  in  mastery  of  tech 
nique,  there  was,  in  "The  Bathers,"  in  "The 
Boy  and  the  Butterfly,"  in  the  decorations 
which  gave  distinction  to  the  Albany  Capitol 
and  were  sacrificed,  —  as  art  always  is  when 
it  is  innocently  involved  in  a  political  job, 

199 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

—  and  in  many  of  the  portraits,  a  rich  lan 
guage  of  temperament,  a  luminousness,  a 
command  of  tones  full  of  ardor  and  passion, 
which  revealed  the  presence  of  a  genius  trained 
in  the  Old  but  reveling  in  the  freedom  and 
audacity  of  the  New  World. 

Whistler  and  La  Farge  came  of  age  a  little 
later,  and,  in  very  diverse  ways,  exhibited 
that  happy  coming  together  of  genius  and 
culture  which  precedes  fertility  of  high-class 
work  in  all  the  arts,  and  which,  in  the  case 
of  these  two  painters,  gave  American  painting 
secure  place  in  the  critical  opinion  of  the 
world.  The  work  of  both  craftsmen  was 
saturated  with  feeling,  with  personality  of 
rare  quality,  and  irradiated  again  and  again 
by  the  magic  of  inspiration.  Mr.  La  Farge 
has  so  lately  gone  from  us,  but  the  complete 
ness  of  the  disclosure  of  his  gifts  in  the  com 
paratively  small  mass  of  his  work  makes  it 
proper  to  speak  of  it  as  a  rounded  achieve 
ment.  It  may  be  said  of  him  with  safety, 
as  of  Whistler,  that  he  has  never  sacrificed 
art  to  any  kind  of  expediency,  nor  shaped 
his  work  to  any  passing  interests ;  but  with 

200 


THE  AMERICAN  IN  ART 

the  unswerving  fidelity  of  a  man  of  deep  artis 
tic  instincts,  he  served  his  country  by  regard 
ing  not  what  it  craved,  but  what  alone  could 
finally  satisfy  it.  The  note  of  distinction 
in  his  work,  as  in  that  of  Whistler  and  of  a 
considerable  group  of  younger  painters,  has 
been  an  immense  consolation  to  those  who 
have  feared  that  the  price  for  the  obvious 
material  comforts  of  democracy  might  be  a 
loss  of  fineness  of  feeling,  of  a  certain  eleva 
tion,  dignity  and  superiority  of  ideal  and 
manner  which  have  always  been  present  in 
the  greater  achievements  of  art. 

Whistler  published  the  Normandy  etchings 
in  1858 ;  four  or  five  years  later  his  portraits 
of  his  mother  and  of  Carlyle  appeared,  to 
be  followed  in  the  next  decade  by  the  incom 
parable  etchings  of  Venice,  of  the  Thames, 
of  glimpses  of  the  sea,  of  those  odds  and  ends 
of  buildings  whose  decay  the  twilight  or  the 
distance  touched  with  a  charm  incommuni 
cable  by  a  hand  less  sensitive,  subtle,  and 
sure.  Against  an  English  background  the 
audacity  and  brilliancy  of  Whistler's  mind 
and  temperament,  his  amazing  skill  in  the 

201 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

dialects  of  verbal  warfare,  the  flash  and  sting 
of  his  repartee,  were  immensely  heightened, 
and  prove  him  the  alien  he  always  claimed  to 
be.  His  skill  in  expression  was  little  short  of 
magical ;  and  if,  in  the  dispassionate  judgment 
of  his  work  by  future  generations,  it  shall 
seem  to  lack  fundamental  power,  there  can 
be  no  skepticism  touching  its  beauty,  subt 
lety,  delicacy,  —  the  specific  qualities  which 
many  critics  have  agreed  must  perish  under 
the  blight  of  democracy. 
«  American  painting  had  ceased  to  be  iso 
lated  and  provincial  long  before  the  United 
States  had  been  forced  out  of  a  seclusion  from 
the  affairs  of  the  world,  which  it  cherished  as 
an  historic  policy  after  the  conditions  of 
modern  civilization  had  entirely  changed,  and 
the  endeavor  to  separate  privilege  from  re 
sponsibility  had  become  as  futile  as  it  was 
selfish.  Men  whose  work  bears  the  marks  of 
locality  as  distinctly  as  that  of  Eastman 
Johnson  and  Winslow  Homer;  of  personal 
idealism,  ascending  at  times  to  the  height  of 
vision,  as  that  of  Fuller  among  the  older,  and 
Thayer  among  the  younger,  men;  of  bril- 

202 


THE  AMERICAN  IN  ART 

liant  and  audacious  character-reading  and 
brush  work,  as  that  of  Sargent;  of  forceful 
or  charming  individuality  of  observation  of 
nature  and  of  the  human  face,  as  that  of 
Tyron,  Brown,  Foster,  Brush,  Walker,  Beck- 
with,  Alexander,  Cecilia  Beaux, --to  select 
a  few  among  many  representative  names,  — 
by  a  common  sincerity  of  feeling,  by  great 
diversity  of  gifts,  and  by  high  seriousness  of 
spirit,  emancipated  American  painting  from 
provincial  tastes,  local  standards,  and  na 
tional  complacency. 

Fifty  years  ago,  American  sculpture  was 
a  matter  of  a  few  names,  a  few  pieces  of 
well-cut  marble,  and  a  considerable  mass 
of  pretty  and  meaningless  reminiscences  of 
Italian  ateliers.  Ignorance  of  the  art  was 
widespread,  and  where  ignorance  ended  prej 
udice  began.  There  was  a  chilling  suspicion 
of  the  decency  of  sculpture,  and  the  unhappy 
artist  who  hinted  at  the  existence  of  the 
human  form  under  clothes  was  regarded  as 
a  dealer  in  immorality.  In  Philadelphia, 
in  1845,  a  few  casts  from  the  antique  created 
something  very  like  a  public  scandal ;  and 

203 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

when,  at  an  earlier  period,  Greenough's 
"Chanting  Cherubs,"  the  first  group  by  an 
American  sculptor,  was  exhibited,  a  storm 
of  condemnation  enveloped  the  undraped 
figures ;  nude  babies  were  familiar  in  Ameri 
can  homes,  but  their  appearance  in  public 
shocked  the  moral  sense  of  the  whole  com 
munity.  This  was  in  New  York,  where,  in 
early  times,  gentlemen  who  profited  by  piracy 
had  been  influential  members  of  society. 
The  symbolism  of  Powers's  "Greek  Slave," 
and  the  passionate  sympathy  with  the  Greek 
struggle  for  freedom,  diverted  attention  from 
the  nudity  of  the  figure  to  the  pathos  it  ex 
pressed;  but  it  was  thought  necessary,  in 
the  interests  of  public  morals,  that  the  fair 
captive  should  be  examined  by  a  committee 
of  experts.  Accordingly,  a  group  of  clergy 
men  in  Cincinnati  sat  as  a  jury  and,  after  a 
critical  examination  of  the  figure,  issued  a 
kind  of  license  for  purposes  of  public  exhibi 
tion.  The  humor  of  submitting  the  statue 
to  the  inspection  of  a  committee  of  clergy 
men  does  not  seem  to  have  occurred  to  any 
save  a  few  Americans  who  had  been  cor- 

204 


THE  AMERICAN  IN  ART 

rupted  by  familiarity  with  foreign  galleries; 
nor  does  any  one  appear  to  have  realized  that 
the  real  immorality  was  not  in  the  timid 
innocent  slave,  but  in  the  public  opinion 
which  hailed  her  effigy  as  the  greatest  work  of 
art  in  the  history  of  the  world. 

These  significant  facts  explain  the  eager 
haste  with  which  Greenough,  Powers,  and 
Crawford  fled  to  Italy  and  remained  in  that 
more  genial  clime.  The  sin  of  self-conscious 
ness  which  made  Americans  blush  when  the 
human  form  was  mentioned  in  polite  conver 
sation,  the  lack  of  public  interest,  the  dense 
ignorance  of  public  taste,  and  the  absence  of 
examples  of  the  art  and  of  fine  marble,  drove 
the  little  group  of  sculptors  into  lifelong  exile. 
Houdon,  the  Frenchman,  and  Cerrachi, 
the  Italian,  had  done  some  interesting  work 
in  this  country ;  Rush  and  Augur  had  been 
timidly  prophetic  in  wood  and  stone;  there 
were  Italian  carvings  in  some  of  the  colonial 
homes ;  but  it  was  still  very  early  dawn  in 
American  sculpture  when  Greenough,  Powers, 
and  Crawford  became  professional  sculptors. 
Greenough  and  Crawford,  despite  the  un- 

205 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

evenness  of  their  work  and  their  partial  suc 
cess  in  large  undertakings,  made  contribu 
tions  of  lasting  artistic  and  historical  value 
to  the  art  which  they  practiced  with  passion 
ate  fidelity.  Powers  lacked  temperament, 
vigor,  the  creative  imagination;  he  never 
escaped  the  trammels  of  the  Italian  tradi 
tion  and  set  his  hand  boldly  and  strongly 
to  original  work ;  but  he  carved  some  admi 
rable  portrait  busts,  full  of  character,  firm  in 
manner,  and  faithful  in  likeness. 

How  far  the  country  had  yet  to  go  in  under 
standing  and  appreciation  of  sculpture  is 
brought  out  by  the  fact  that  in  1862  the 
National  Congress  commissioned  a  girl  of 
fifteen,  after  an  education  in  her  art  which 
lasted  a  twelvemonth,  to  execute  a  statue 
of  Lincoln,  which  now  stands  in  the  rotunda 
of  the  Capitol  at  Washington,  among  other 
effigies  of  departed  statesmen  whose  enforced 
absence  alone  secures  the  safety  of  the  col 
lection.  In  that  melancholy  hour  the  country 
was  standing,  however,  on  the  threshold  of 
that  day  of  free  and  varied  creativeness  which 
Las  given  contemporary  American  sculpture 

206 


THE  AMERICAN  IN  ART 

a  place  of  the  first  importance  in  the  interest 
of  the  artistic  world.  In  no  art  was  there  for 
the  first  seventy  years  of  the  national  life  so 
little  promise;  in  none  has  there  been  so 
great  an  achievement. 

In  1857,  Mr.  Ward  first  modeled  his  Indian 
Hunter,  which  now  stands,  alert,  alive,  con 
vincing,  set  low  as  if  gliding  through  the 
shadows,  in  the  foliage  of  New  York's  beauti 
ful  park.  Eleven  years  later  Saint  Gaudens, 
whose  death  fell  like  a  shadow  over  the 
awakening  love  of  beauty  in  America,  re 
ceived  the  commission  for  the  statue  of 
Farragut,  which  put  him  at  the  forefront  of 
American  sculptors,  and  made  an  immediate 
impression  on  monumental  art  in  the  country. 
No  figure  set  up  in  any  public  place  in  America 
has  spoken  with  such  simplicity  and  human- 
ness  of  speech  to  the  mighty  tides  that  stream 
past  it  on  the  most  crowded  of  American 
thoroughfares,  nor  has  any  more  distinctly 
given  a  fresh  and  invigorating  impulse  to  an 
art  but  lately  emancipated  from  foreign  influ 
ence  and  timidly  venturing  to  give  its  soul 
play.  The  Lincoln  in  the  Chicago  Park 

207 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

which  bears  its  name  has  been  accepted  as 
the  foremost  portrait  statue  in  the  New 
World ;  the  beautiful  and  baffling  figure  in 
the  Rock  Creek  Cemetery  in  Washington, 
clothed  with  majesty  of  the  mystery  of 
death;  the  Shaw  Memorial  in  Boston,  with 
its  moving  column  of  negro  soldiers  fast 
upon  the  leader  who  rides,  young  and  im 
mortal,  into  the  ranks  of  the  dead;  and, 
finally,  the  superb  Sherman  Memorial  at  one 
of  the  entrances  to  Central  Park,  New  York, 
held  securely  on  its  pedestal,  but  moving, 
invincible,  and  alive,  like  its  great  fellow  in 
Venice :  these  are  achievements  to  be  reck 
oned  with,  not  only  as  forming  an  inspiring 
chapter  in  the  development  of  American 
sculpture,  but  as  a  lasting  contribution  to 
the  art  of  the  world.  What  a  distance  these 
works  register  from  tentative  work  of  the 
earlier  sculptors;  from  Palmer's  charming 
ideal  heads,  and  those  graceful  figures  which 
did  so  much  to  awaken  popular  interest  in 
sculpture ;  from  Ball's  impressive  monumental 
work;  from  the  varied  and  cultivated  crea 
tions  of  Story,  that  fascinating  and  many- 

208 


THE  AMERICAN  IN  ART 

sided  American,  whose  life  was  so  full  of 
interest  and  occupation,  and  who  was  fluent 
in  so  many  languages  of  art  that  nothing  he 
accomplished  quite  expressed  his  vitality  or 
fulfilled  his  promise  ! 

The  fine  poise  and  noble  serenity  of  Mr. 
French's  work,  in  which  the  skill  of  the 
craftsman  and  the  power  of  revealing  beauty 
and  strength  to  men  untrained  in  art,  are 
happily  united ;  the  virile  audacity  and  bold 
ness  of  Mr.  Macmonnies ;  the  striking  and 
forceful  originality  of  Mr.  Barnard;  Mr. 
Bartlett's  "Lafayette,"  with  its  indefinable  air 
of  distinction,  and  his  "Genius  of  Man"  at  the 
Pan-American  Exposition ;  Mr.  Boyle's  "Stone 
Age,"  in  Fairmount  Park,  Philadelphia;  Mr. 
Adams's  gracious  and  unfailingly  fascinating 
portrait  busts  ;  Mr.  Elwell's  figures  of  "Ceres" 
and  "Kronos"  at  the  Buffalo  Exposition ;  Mr. 
Ruckstuhl's  strongly  conceived  "Spirit  of  the 
Confederacy " ;  Mr.  Partridge's  meditative 
study  of  Tennyson;  Mr.  MacNeil's  "Sun 
Vow";  Mr.  Lopez's  "Sprinter";  Mr.  Pratt's 
"Andersonville  Prisoner  Boy";  Mr.  Dallin's 
"Signal  of  Peace"  ;  Mr.  Bringhurst's  "Kiss  of 
p  209 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

Eternity" ;  Mr.  Taft's  "Solitude  of  the  Soul" 
—  to  select  a  few  representative  works  out  of 
a  great  multitude  —  show  how  far  the  art  of 
sculpture  has  gone  in  mastery  of  tools,  cour 
age  of  individual  taste,  variety  and  freshness 
of  manner  and  subject,  since  the  days  when 
Greenough,  Powers,  Crawford,  and  Story 
found  in  Italy  a  refuge  from  the  ignorance  and 
indifference  of  their  fellow  countrymen. 

The  record  of  the  progress  of  music  has 
not  been  unlike  that  of  sculpture.  If  it 
could  be  recalled  in  baldest  outline,  touching 
only  its  points  of  new  departure,  it  would 
show  the  same  general  features.  It  was,  for 
obvious  reasons,  more  widely  appreciated  in 
the  earlier  times  than  sculpture,  but  its 
intelligent  students  were  comparatively  few, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  old-fashioned 
schools  for  young  women  placed  the  study  of 
music  side  by  side  with  needlework,  "elegant 
deportment  and  polite  conversation."  There 
was  a  great  deal  of  that  kind  of  music  which 
Dumas  called  "the  most  expensive  form  of 
noise."  A  musical  people  could  not  and 
would  not  have  accepted  the  "Star-Spangled 

210 


THE  AMERICAN  IN  ART 

Banner,"  with  its  terrible  interrogatory  "Oh, 
say,"  as  a  national  anthem.  There  were 
homes,  and  even  communities,  in  which  sing 
ing  and  instrumental  music  were  matters  of 
taste  and  skill  as  well  as  of  heart;  but  the 
country  at  large  was  a  barren  wilderness  so 
far  as  the  "concourse  of  sweet  sounds"  was 
concerned.  To-day,  in  many  large  cities,  it 
is  impossible  to  make  use  of  musical  oppor 
tunities,  so  many  and  so  interesting  are  they. 
In  no  art  has  there  been  so  rapid  and  so  wide 
a  growth  of  intelligent  interest  during  the 
last  fifty  years.  In  nearly  all  the  large  cities 
orchestras  of  thorough  training  are  to  be 
heard,  and  permanent  organizations  of  highly 
educated  musicians  are  fast  becoming  a  fea 
ture  of  life  in  the  large  centers.  New  York 
has  long  been  devoted  to  grand  opera,  and 
musical  programs  of  every  sort  and  kind 
are  rendered  to  crowded  audiences.  It  is 
true,  all  the  other  cities  in  the  country  are 
agreed  that  this  musical  interest  is  a  fad, 
but  it  is  equally  true  that  it  is  so  persistent 
and  discriminating  that  it  deceives  the  elect 
leaders  of  the  Old  World  who  conduct  the 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

New  York  orchestras  from  time  to  time,  and 
are  deluded  into  the  belief  that  the  me 
tropolis  is  a  musical  city.  Boston  listens, 
without  impeachment  of  her  intelligence, 
to  her  admirable  orchestras,  and  educates 
an  almost  innumerable  host  of  students  in 
music.  Philadelphia,  Pittsburgh,  Chicago, 
Cincinnati,  have  the  most  substantial  claims 
to  consideration  as  centers  of  interest  in  musi 
cal  matters ;  while  the  growing  enthusiasm 
for  musical  festivals  in  Worcester,  Montclair, 
Bethlehem  and  other  communities  may  be 
safely  taken  as  indicative  of  a  steadily  widen 
ing  area  of  knowledge  and  appreciation. 
Music  is  taught  in  some  of  the  older  colleges 
by  teachers  who  are  also  composers,  while  in 
the  young  and  vigorous  institutions  of  the 
Central  West  the  love  of  the  art  is  a  popular 
movement. 

Side  by  side  with  an  immense  amount  of 
vulgarity  in  sound,  of  hideous  "ragtime" 
profanity,  there  is  a  growing  critical  sense 
in  music.  Stephen  Foster's  touch  on  the 
springs  of  emotion  in  "The  Old  Kentucky 
Home,"  "Old  Folks  at  Home,"  "Nellie  was 


THE  AMERICAN  IN  ART 

a  Lady,"  and  other  melodies  which  the  whole 
continent  sang  or  hummed  sixty  years  ago, 
was  a  prelude  to  a  very  considerable  produc 
tion  of  popular  music,  lacking  in  classical 
quality,  but  with  a  certain  na'ive  originality 
and  significance  in  our  musical  development, 
as  Dvorak  was  quick  to  see  when  he  composed 
the  New  World  Symphony.  Such  teachers  as 
Professors  Paine  and  Parker,  who  have  been 
creators  in  the  field  in  which  they  have  long 
been  conspicuous  leaders  in  thoroughness  of 
education ;  such  composers  as  MacDowell, 
Chadwick,  Hadley,  Foote,  Kelly,  and  Con 
verse,  and  such  conductors  as  Thomas,  the 
elder  Damrosch,  Seidl,  and  Gericke,  have 
brought  Americans  out  of  the  desert  of  the 
mediocre  and  cheap  in  an  art  which  has, 
perhaps  more  than  any  other,  given  freest 
and  deepest  expression  to  the  modern  temper 
a!nd  attitude,  into  a  land  of  abundant  and 
increasing  fertility  and  refreshment. 


VIII 
SCHOOL  AND   COLLEGE 

THE  most  eminent  student  of  American 
life  has  said  that  the  passion  of  the  American 
is  not  for  money,  as  many  other  observers  have 
declared,  but  for  education.  The  popular  be 
lief  in  its  moral  and  political  efficacy  is  a 
fundamental  conviction  and  has  developed  an 
unprecedented  generosity  from  legislatures  and 
from  private  donors.  Respect  for  scholarship 
came  to  America  with  the  first  settlers,  though 
all  the  colonies  did  not  attach  the  same  im 
portance  to  education.  In  England,  Scotland 
and  Holland  the  school,  which  had  been  the 
adjunct  of  the  church  and  in  a  special  sense 
the  teacher  of  priests,  did  not  cease  to  be  re 
ligious  when  the  Protestants  came  into  power ; 
on  the  contrary,  they  regarded  education 
as  their  most  important  ally.  When  the  peo 
ple  of  Leyden,  after  one  of  the  most  heroic 
sieges  in  history,  were  offered  by  William  of 
214 


SCHOOL  AND   COLLEGE 

Orange  perpetual  remission  of  taxes,  they 
asked  that  they  might  have  a  university ;  the 
Puritan  movement  in  England  was  led  largely 
by  men  who  had  studied  at  Cambridge,  and 
the  Puritan  faith  in  education  as  the  bulwark 
of  religion  went  to  New  England,  with  the 
earliest  colonists  and  made  that  section  a 
mother  of  colleges  and  a  teacher  of  teachers. 
The  Virginia  Company  had  no  sooner  set 
foot  on  the  banks  of  the  James  River  for  com 
mercial  purposes  than  it  set  apart  a  large 
section  of  land  for  the  use  of  a  college  to 
teach  Indian  children  the  rudiments  of  Chris 
tianity  and  of  the  Latin  language,  and  money 
was  collected  in  England  to  establish  a  school 
which  should  prepare  children  for  this  col 
lege.  The  failure  of  the  company  a  few  years 
later  defeated  these  plans,  but  they  reveal 
the  mind  of  the  men  who  were  behind  the 
enterprise.  Conditions  in  Virginia  were  not 
favorable  to  popular  education,  but  free 
schools  were  established  here  and  there  in 
the  colony  in  the  first  half  century  of  its 
history.  Small  private  schools  came  into 
existence  wherever  there  were  groups  of  set- 

215 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

tiers ;  while  the  planters,  who  were  becoming 
prosperous,  provided  private  tutors  for  their 
children. 

In  New  England  preaching  was  a  function 
of  the  very  highest  importance  and  preachers 
were  leaders  in  public  affairs;  the  educa 
tion  of  preachers  was,  therefore,  one  of  the 
matters  to  which  the  Puritan  colonists  gave 
earliest  attention.  They  accepted  the  bur 
den  of  supporting  these  schools  as  a  public 
duty,  and  the  maintenance  of  education  by 
taxation  became  axiomatic  while  the  feeble 
settlers  were  still  fighting  to  keep  standing- 
ground  on  the  edge  of  the  continent.  In 
1642,  twenty-two  years  after  the  landing  at 
Plymouth,  Massachusetts  ordained  by  law 
that  every  child  should  be  taught  "to  read 
and  understand  the  principles  of  religion  and 
the  capital  laws  of  the  country."  This  ordi 
nance,  narrow  in  conception  but  of  immense 
capacity  for  future  development,  was  the  in 
itial  step  in  the  evolution  of  the  system  of 
public  education  at  public  expense  which  has 
become  one  of  the  most  characteristic  features 
of  American  life.  A  little  later,  in  the  same 

216 


SCHOOL  AND   COLLEGE 

section,  every  township,  when  it  numbered 
fifty  householders,  was  required  to  support  a 
teacher;  and  towns  numbering  a  hundred 
householders,  to  establish  a  school  to  teach 
Latin.  These  schools  were  often  feeble  and 
ineffective,  but  the  little  local  schools  with  a 
single  teacher  traveled  with  the  settlements. 
They  were  rude  pioneer  experiments,  for  the 
conditions  which  surrounded  them  were  rude ; 
their  importance  lay  in  the  fact  that  they 
gave  education  a  first  place  in  public  interest 
and  accustomed  people  to  think  of  educa 
tion  as  a  function  of  the  community. 

Nor  did  the  interest  of  the  colonist  ex 
haust  itself  in  establishing  a  rudimentary 
system  of  public  education.  In  1635,  fifteen 
years  after  the  landing  of  the  first  New  Eng 
land  colony,  the  Boston  Latin  School  was 
opened ;  an  institution  modeled  after  the 
English  Grammar  School,  with  which  many  of 
the  colonists  were  familiar.  This  school  re 
mains  to-day  one  of  the  best-known  schools  in 
America.  Three  years  later,  by  the  generos 
ity  of  John  Harvard,  the  first  of  the  long 
line  of  American  founders  of  colleges,  Har- 

217 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

vard  College  was  opened  for  students ;  an  in 
stitution  which  has  long  held  a  first  place 
by  reason,  not  so  much  of  its  age  as  of  its 
success  in  training  men  of  distinction,  and 
its  leadership  in  educational  adaptation  and 
experiment.  Yale  College,  in  the  New  Haven 
colony,  was  chartered  in  1701  ;  in  1691  a 
college  had  been  established  in  Williamsburg, 
the  capital  of  Virginia.  William  and  Mary 
College  owed  its  original  endowment  to  pri 
vate  donors,  to  the  English  king  and  queen 
after  whom  it  was  named  and  who  bestowed  on 
it  large  tracts  of  unoccupied  lands,  and  to 
the  Virginia  Assembly,  which  set  apart  for  its 
support  the  proceeds  of  a  specific  import 
duty.  But  the  college  owed  more  to  the  stub 
born  determination  of  James  Blair,  a  colonist 
from  Scotland,  than  to  any  other  person.  He 
aroused  the  interest  of  the  English  sovereigns 
and  of  many  prominent  people  in  England  in 
the  proposed  college.  When  he  urged  the 
need  of  it  for  the  sake  of  the  souls  of  the 
colonists  on  the  Attorney-General,  that  im 
portant  officer  of  the  Crown  said,  irritably : 
"Damn  your  souls,  make  tobacco!"  This 

218 


SCHOOL  AND   COLLEGE 

sentence  puts  into  a  few  forcible  words  the 
attitude  towards  the  colonies  which  led  to  the 
disruption  of  their  relations  to  the  mother 
country.  It  was  a  picturesque  statement  of 
the  colonial  policy  of  the  time  when  the  use  of 
colonies  for  revenue  purposes  was  the  chief 
concern  of  the  home  governments. 

Virginia  had  a  great  share  in  the  War  of 
the  Revolution  and  in  the  formation  of  the 
American  government.  In  Washington  she 
gave  the  colonists  a  leader  who  commanded 
their  armies  through  the  long  and  exhausting 
eight  years'  war,  who  became  the  first  Presi 
dent  and  who  remains  the  foremost  American ; 
and  Thomas  Jefferson,  who  drafted  the  Dec 
laration  of  Independence,  became  the  third 
President  and  defined  the  theory  of  the 
powers  of  the  National  government  which 
has  been  held  by  one  of  the  great  political 
parties  from  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution. 
It  is  significant  of  the  spirit  of  the  founders 
of  the  American  state  that  Washington,  who 
had  served  through  the  war  not  only  without 
compensation  but  paid  his  own  expenses,  made 
a  generous  bequest  in  his  last  will  and  testa- 

219 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

ment  for  the  founding  of  a  national  uni 
versity;  while  Jefferson,  who  was  strongly 
influenced  by  French  thought,  founded  the 
University  of  Virginia  in  1825.  The  other 
colleges,  with  the  exception  of  Princeton,  — 
which  showed  the  influence  of  the  Scotch 
universities,  —  were  modeled  largely  on  Eng 
lish  college  lines.  The  University  of  Virginia 
embodied  French  ideals  and  methods.  It 
was  distinctly  a  secular  institution,  while 
the  other  colleges  were  still  more  or  less  under 
the  control  of  the  different  Christian  churches, 
and  their  students  received  distinctive  reli 
gious  teaching  in  one  form  or  another. 

Education  was  not  only  a  prime  public 
interest  in  colonial  America,  but  has  become 
the  chief  interest  in  national  America,  which 
has  moved  steadily  though  often  instinctively 
to  the  conviction  that  access  to  knowledge  is 
not  only  a  guarantee  of  popular  government, 
but  the  supreme  duty  of  such  a  government 
and  the  right  of  all  its  citizens.  There  is  a 
national  system  of  education  in  the  United 
States,  though  there  is  no  national  control 
of  education.  In  all  the  States  education 

220 


SCHOOL  AND   COLLEGE 

is  provided  for  children  at  public  expense ; 
but  the  methods,  extent  and  standards  of  this 
education  are  entirely  within  the  control  of 
the  individual  States.  In  a  few  States  free 
education  is  not  provided  beyond  the  common 
school;  in  the  majority  of  the  States  it  is 
continued  through  the  High  School ;  in  many 
States,  especially  in  the  West,  it  is  con 
tinued  through  the  university.  The  common 
school,  open  to  all  children  everywhere,  is 
the  base  of  this  system.  In  1911  there  were 
17,813,853  pupils  in  such  schools  in  the 
United  States,  and  the  forty -eight  States  paid 
for  their  support  $426,250,434 ;  a  sum  which 
exceeds  one  third  of  the  annual  expenditure 
of  the  National  government,  and  more  than 
doubles  the  expenditure  of  all  the  States  for 
all  other  purposes ;  this  sum  being  raised  en 
tirely  by  direct  taxation  on  the  localities 
which  sustain  the  schools.  These  schools 
are  under  the  general  direction  of  local 
school  boards  elected  by  the  voters  of  the 
district  or  of  the  town. 

To   these    common    schools    supported    by 
taxation  must  be  added  a  multitude  of  schools 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

supported  by  the  various  religious  organiza 
tions,  many  of  which  are  of  high  rank.  The 
Roman  Catholic  Church  has  a  widely  extended 
system  of  parish  schools  in  which  more  than  a 
million  children  are  taught.  There  are  also 
several  thousand  schools  conducted  as  private 
enterprises,  often  thoroughly  equipped  and 
beautifully  housed.  In  many  cities  the  kin 
dergartens  in  the  public  schools  are  supple 
mented  by  kindergartens  supported  by  in 
dividuals  or  by  associations  of  private  persons, 
who  not  only  believe  in  the  Froebelian  ideas 
and  methods  of  education  for  all  young  chil 
dren  but  are  convinced  that  the  kindergarten 
is  specially  adapted  to  meet  the  needs  of 
children  in  the  congested  quarters  of  large 
cities  and  in  factory  towns.  The  national 
government  maintains  a  number  of  schools 
for  Indian  children,  as  a  temporary  expedient. 
And  a  large  group  of  schools  for  negro  chil 
dren  is  supported  by  private  means  at  points 
where  the  need  of  immediate  education  is 
pressing  and  the  burden  too  heavy  for  local 
resources.  Large  gifts  of  land  for  educational 
purposes  were  made  to  the  States  when  the 


SCHOOL  AND   COLLEGE 

National  government  had  great  unoccupied 
tracts  at  its  disposal,  and  it  maintains  a 
Military  Academy  and  a  Naval  Academy  of 
high  rank. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  National  govern 
ment  does  not  support  the  educational  sys 
tem  of  the  country  because,  in  the  division 
of  functions,  that  function  is  discharged  by 
the  States.  Within  the  last  few  years  a 
National  Bureau  of  Education  has  been  estab 
lished  at  Washington  under  the  direction  of 
the  Commissioner  of  Education,  but  its  work 
is  not  executive ;  it  collects  and  formulates 
the  statistics  of  education  in  all  parts  of 
the  country  and  the  information  which  it 
gathers  and  arranges  is  at  the  disposal  of 
the  country.  The  Commissioner  is  a  non- 
political  officer  of  the  government  and  is 
chosen  for  his  educational  knowledge  and 
executive  ability.  He  has  little  direct  au 
thority  but  great  influence,  and  that  in 
fluence  is  likely  to  increase  as  the  need  of 
greater  uniformity  of  standards  and  methods 
becomes  more  pressing  with  the  extension 
of  the  school  system. 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

A  child  in  an  American  community  which 
provides  kindergartens  enters  the  kindergar 
ten  at  the  age  of  four  and  the  primary  depart 
ment  of  the  common  school  of  the  district  at 
six  or  seven.  In  this  school  he  remains  un 
til  his  fourteenth  year  and  is  taught  the 
rudiments  —  reading,  writing,  arithmetic, 
literature  and  science.  In  many  schools  pro 
vision  is  made  for  manual  training  and  for 
the  beginning  of  education  in  the  trades. 
From  his  fourteenth  to  his  eighteenth  year, 
speaking  generally,  he  is  in  the  High  School, 
where  he  pursues  the  same  subjects  in  more 
advanced  classes;  adding  to  them,  if  he  in 
tends  to  go  through  college,  special  studies 
in  the  languages,  history  and  science  pre 
paratory  to  his  college  work;  or,  if  he  pro 
poses  to  enter  the  field  of  business,  courses 
in  mathematics,  bookkeeping,  accounts,  cur 
rency  and  kindred  subjects.  Of  late  years  the 
High  School  has  been  one  of  the  chief  centers 
of  interest  in  the  field  of  education.  Its 
courses  of  studies  have  been  greatly  extended 
and  its  standards  raised.  The  young  men  who 
enter  Harvard  by  way  of  the  High  School  have 


SCHOOL  AND  COLLEGE 

made  an  exceptionally  high  record  in  their 
entrance  examinations. 

There  is  a  small  group  of  endowed  prepara 
tory  schools  for  boys;  some  of  which,  like 
the  academies  at  Exeter  and  Andover,  are 
of  early  origin ;  others,  like  St.  Paul's,  Law- 
renceville,  Groton,  the  Hill  School,  the  Mer- 
cersberg  Academy,  are  of  later  creation. 
These  schools,  which  fill  in  the  United  States 
the  place  taken  by  Eton,  Harrow,  Rugby  and 
other  well-known  public  schools  in  England, 
are  generously  endowed,  handsomely  housed, 
and  have  behind  them  a  growing  body  of 
graduates  devoted  to  their  interest. 

Increasing  numbers  of  American  youth 
are  prepared  for  college,  however,  in  the 
High  Schools.  These  schools  have  become, 
moreover,  social  centers  in  the  smaller  towns 
and  in  the  larger  and  more  widely  scattered 
communities.  They  bring  together  boys  and 
girls  from  country  homes  and  rural  hamlets, 
and  no  small  part  of  the  education  they  fur 
nish  is  in  the  broadening  of  ideas  and  inter 
ests  through  this  wider  intercourse.  There 
is  a  growing  feeling  that  the  fine,  spacious 
Q  225 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

and  often  beautiful  buildings  devoted  to  pub 
lic  education  have  larger  uses  for  the  com 
munity  than  they  have  yet  served ;  night 
schools  have  long  been  established  in  the 
city  school  buildings  and  popular  lectures 
on  serious  subjects  are  given  in  their  assem 
bly  rooms.  In  some  communities  there  is  a 
growing  disposition  to  place  the  school  build 
ings  more  generally  in  the  hands  of  the  people 
for  meetings  called  to  discuss  public  ques 
tions  or  to  take  action  on  public  matters. 
At  seventeen  or  eighteen  the  boy  enters 
college  and,  if  he  takes  the  full  college  course, 
spends  four  years  in  further  study  of  the 
languages,  of  mathematics,  history,  philos 
ophy,  science  in  its  various  departments, 
economics  in  its  greatly  broadened  scope. 
Until  a  generation  ago  the  course  of  study 
in  the  different  colleges  was  practically  iden 
tical  so  far  as  subjects  were  concerned ;  there 
were  four  classes,  sometimes  subdivided  for 
the  sake  of  efficiency,  and  each  class  fol 
lowed  a  fixed  course  in  the  Humanities,  in 
Philosophy,  Mathematics  and  the  principles 
of  Science.  The  course  was  sharply  defined 


SCHOOL  AND   COLLEGE 

and  every  student  was  compelled  to  conform 
to  its  requirements.  There  was  then  a  per 
fectly  defined  and  widely  accepted  conception 
of  the  college  as  an  institution  for  the  general 
education  of  youth  on  broad  lines  of  liberal 
culture ;  an  attempt  to  put  into  practice  the 
definition  of  education  formulated  by  Bishop 
Comenius :  "to  train  generally  all  who  are 
born  men  for  all  which  is  human." 

The  American  college  was  the  culmina 
tion  of  a  course  of  education  devised  to  train 
the  boy  as  a  general  force  before  preparing 
him  for  specific  uses  of  that  force ;  to  make 
him  familiar  with  the  history  of  thought, 
and  with  classical  literature;  to  give  him 
sound  habits  of  thought  and  a  general  view  of 
the  physical  world  through  a  knowledge  of  the 
principles  of  Science.  The  word  culture  de 
fined  perhaps  as  accurately  as  a  single  word 
can  define  the  older  college  ideal  in  America 
and  described  the  quality  which  it  developed 
in  the  best  students.  It  was  a  literary  rather 
than  a  scientific  education,  and  reflected, 
with  modifications,  the  English  university 
ideals  by  which  all  the  early  colleges,  except 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

the  University  of  Virginia,  were  deeply  in 
fluenced.  It  sent  out  men  of  culture  rather 
than  men  of  thorough  training ;  technical  and 
professional  education  was  provided  by  the 
universities  and  technical  schools  and  fol 
lowed  at  the  end  of  the  college  course.  Lowell, 
one  of  the  finest  examples  of  the  generous  cul 
ture  of  the  old-time  college,  put  the  college 
ideal  in  somewhat  exaggerated  form  in  the 
declaration  that  a  college  should  teach  nothing 
useful ;  nothing,  that  is,  which  a  man  turns  to 
account  in  earning  a  living.  The  college 
was  supposed  to  help  a  man  "make  his  soul" 
—  to  borrow  a  French  phrase;  the  special 
training  which  came  later  taught  him  to  make 
his  living. 

But  radical  changes  of  general  conditions 
have  greatly  modified  and  extended  the 
older  college  curriculum.  The  development 
of  the  sciences  has  compelled  the  introduc 
tion  of  departments,  of  subdivisions  of 
classes,  of  extended  laboratory  facilities ; 
and  the  spread  of  scientific  ideas  and  the 
immensely  widened  uses  of  science  have  put 
scientific  interests  in  the  forefront  of  the 


SCHOOL  AND   COLLEGE 

higher  education  and,  in  a  great  number  of  in 
stitutions,  revolutionized  both  the  subjects 
and  the  methods  of  college  training. 

Formerly  the  majority  of  American  youth 
looked  forward  to  one  of  three  professions, 
the  law,  medicine  or  theology.  These  were 
called  the  "learned  professions,"  because  it 
was  recognized  that  special  training  was  of 
high  importance  in  their  practice.  Now  there 
are  more  than  a  hundred  professions  which 
demand  technical  training  on  the  part  of  their 
practitioners ;  and  engineering,  which  only 
a  few  men  formerly  chose  for  their  life  work, 
now  has  not  only  its  own  schools  in  connec 
tion  with  the  older  universities  but  has  called 
into  existence  a  large  number  of  institutions 
of  high  rank  devoted  entirely  to  its  own  educa 
tional  work. 

Formerly,  before  the  relations  between 
business  and  science  had  been  recognized  — 
and  in  this  respect  Japan  and  Germany  are 
far  in  the  lead  —  the  youth  who  intended  to 
enter  into  any  form  of  commercial  life  learned 
his  work  by  entering  an  established  business 
house  and  working  his  way  up  from  the  bottom. 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

Not  only  was  he  not  expected  to  bring  a  col 
lege  training  to  his  task,  but  such  a  training 
was  regarded  as  a  hindrance  to  his  success ; 
it  brought  him  too  late  into  the  field  and  it 
gave  him  ideas,  habits  and  tastes  which 
were  of  no  practical  service.  Men  of  busi 
ness  regarded  the  college  as  useful  in  prepar 
ing  men  for  the  professions,  but  as  unneces 
sary  if  not  a  hindrance  to  success  in  dealing 
with  practical  affairs.  But  competition  with 
countries  in  which  business  is  as  much  a 
profession  as  the  Law  or  Medicine  or  Diplo 
macy,  and  the  steadily  advancing  standards 
of  efficiency  in  all  fields  of  endeavor,  have 
compelled  the  reorganization  of  the  methods 
of  higher  education.  The  heads  of  great 
manufacturing  organizations  have  learned  that 
a  main  source  of  profit  lies  in  the  skill  of  the 
chemist,  and  that  the  laboratories  of  the 
universities  hold  the  success  of  the  factories 
in  their  hands;  and  it  has  become  difficult 
to  keep  promising  young  chemists  in  the  field 
of  original  research  because  business  offers 
such  glittering  prizes  and  such  rapid  advance 
ment. 

230 


SCHOOL  AND   COLLEGE 

The  immense  development  of  the  means 
of  transportation  has  opened  another  field  of 
endeavor  to  trained  men,  and  service  in  the 
various  scientific  departments  of  the  govern 
ment  still  another  field.  Farming  is  put  on 
a  scientific  basis,  and  a  large  number  of 
schools  and  colleges  of  agriculture  have  come 
into  existence. 

These  new  demands  on  education  have 
been  met  in  the  college  curriculum  as  well  as 
in  the  development  of  universities  and  techni 
cal  schools.  The  colleges  which  still  hold 
to  the  older  ideal  of  education  as  a  discipline 
to  secure  culture  have  responded  by  enlarg 
ing  and  equipping  their  facilities  for  the  study 
of  science.  But  the  great  majority  of  colleges 
have  gone  much  further :  they  have  pro 
vided  a  very  wide  range  of  studies,  and  given 
their  students,  under  certain  restrictions,  the 
privilege  of  electing  which  road  they  will 
take  to  obtain  the  degree  which  becomes  more 
and  more  necessary  to  the  man  who  hopes 
for  preferment  in  any  profession  or  occupa 
tion  that  demands  the  knowledge  of  the 
expert. 

231 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

The  elective  system  has  now  been  tested  by 
the  experience  of  a  generation;  and  while  it 
has  been  modified  so  as  to  secure  a  certain 
logical  order  and  a  certain  coordination  of 
studies,  it  has  permanently  established  itself 
in  many  colleges.  Scientific  and  humanistic 
courses  run  parallel  with  one  another  through 
the  four  years  and  lead  to  degrees  in  science 
or  in  art  as  the  case  may  be.  This  involves 
the  subdivision  of  classes  into  small  groups, 
the  enlargement  of  faculties,  the  extension  of 
equipment  to  include  laboratories,  depart 
mental  libraries,  rooms  for  the  seminar,  for 
apparatus  of  many  kinds  ;  and  all  these  things 
have  added  enormously  to  the  expense  of  edu 
cation. 

It  has  been  found  necessary,  moreover, 
to  provide  for  those  young  men  who  cannot 
command  the  time  and  money  necessary  for 
both  college  and  university  training  but  to 
whom  the  degree  in  Law,  Medicine,  Engineer 
ing,  Pedagogy,  Theology  is  essential.  If  a 
man  takes  the  full  college  course  he  graduates, 
as  a  rule,  at  twenty-two  years  of  age  and 
still  has  three  or  four  years  of  work  in  the 


SCHOOL  AND   COLLEGE 

Medical,  Law,  Theological  or  Technical  school 
before  he  can  begin  his  work  in  life.  In 
other  words,  he  cannot  begin  to  earn  his  own 
living  until  he  is  twenty-five  or  twenty-six 
years  of  age.  It  is  true  very  large  endow 
ments  in  the  hands  of  the  colleges  provide 
aid  for  an  army  of  students  who  cannot  meet 
all  their  expenses ;  and  many  colleges,  espe 
cially  those  in  cities,  provide  the  student 
with  facilities  for  earning  money  in  ways 
which  do  not  conflict  with  academic  duties. 
But  there  are  many  students  who  cannot  post 
pone  self-support  so  late ;  and  some  colleges 
have  responded  to  their  needs  by  furnishing 
opportunities  for  professional  and  technical 
education  during  the  last  two  years  of  the 
college  course,  counting  the  work  done  in 
these  years  in  the  sum  total  of  required  work 
for  the  coveted  degree  which  opens  the  doors 
of  the  several  professions.  By  this  means 
the  time  of  preparation  is  reduced  one  or  two 
years.  But  there  is  a  strong  feeling  in  fa 
vor  of  the  full  course  whenever  conditions 
permit. 

In  a  number  of  colleges  the  elective  system 
233 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

exists  in  the  modified  form  of  the  group  sys 
tem;  and  students  are  offered,  not  a  free 
choice  of  a  wide  range  of  unrelated  studies, 
but  of  groups  of  studies  so  arranged  as  to 
cover  various  fields  and  to  provide  a  fairly 
consistent  and  logical  scheme  of  general 
education.  Even  in  colleges  which  provide 
most  generously  for  elective  students  it  has 
been  found  necessary  to  place  incoming 
students  under  the  influence  of  experienced 
advisers  in  making  their  initial  choice  of 
subjects  and  to  require  certain  definite  at 
tainments  for  a  degree. 

The  student  instinct  for  choosing  easy, 
or,  in  the  student  slang,  "snap,"  courses  has 
also  been  put  under  police  regulation,  so  to 
speak.  In  a  word,  the  endeavor  has  been 
made  to  protect  the  undergraduate  from  his 
own  inexperience  in  planning  his  college  course, 
to  secure  from  him  at  least  a  respectable 
amount  of  work,  and  to  make  sure  that  he  gets 
a  fairly  comprehensive  view  of  the  field  of 
knowledge. 

Very  broad  contrasts  are  offered  therefore 
by  the  American  college;  in  many  insti- 

234 


SCHOOL  AND   COLLEGE 

tutions  the  students  still  pursue  through 
four  years  the  beaten  paths  in  Latin,  Greek, 
History,  Philosophy,  Literature,  Natural  Sci 
ence  and  Mathematics  ;  in  other  institutions, 
of  which  Harvard  may  serve  as  an  example, 
the  field  of  knowledge  is  traversed  by  paths  so 
many  as  to  bewilder  the  Freshman  who  is 
eager  to  make  the  best  use  of  his  opportunities. 
It  is  said  that  a  man  could  not  take  all  the 
courses  offered  at  Harvard  in  two  hundred 
years.  Every  student  is  required  to  study 
English  composition  ;  beyond  this  very  modest 
requirement  the  whole  field  is  practically 
open  to  him.  The  Harvard  system,  which  has 
been  somewhat  modified,  is  the  ultimate  ex 
pression  of  New  England  individualism  in  edu 
cation.  It  is  reported  that  in  a  certain 
university  of  recent  creation  the  President, 
a  man  of  notable  scholarship  and  unappeasable 
energy,  was  waited  upon  one  morning  by  a 
young  man  who  wished  to  study  Choctaw,  a 
vanishing  Indian  dialect.  "We  have  no  de 
partment  for  the  teaching  of  Choctaw  this 
morning,"  said  the  head  of  the  university, 
"but  if  you  will  be  good  enough  to  call  again 

235 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

this    afternoon    we    will    organize    one    for 

you." 

There  are  no  stories  which  bring  us  nearer 
to  the  American  spirit  than  the  stories  of 
patient  self-denial  and  self-sacrifice  of  parents 
in  order  that  their  children  may  be  educated. 
To  bring  together  the  sum  necessary  for  this 
purpose  the  father  and  mother  will  strip 
their  lives  of  every  comfort  and  pleasure. 

Fifty  years  ago  it  was  the  boy  who  filled  the 
foreground  of  hope  and  ambition ;  but  for  a 
generation  the  girl  has  stood  beside  him.  She 
looks  forward  to  a  college  course  as  confi 
dently  as  her  brother ;  and  for  her  it  has  be 
come  as  necessary  if  she  is  to  enter  the  pro 
fession  which  has  long  been  open  to  women  in 
America,  teaching.  But  the  vast  majority  of 
girls  who  take  the  college  course  are  not  and 
do  not  expect  to  become  self-supporting. 
They  come  from  well-to-do  homes;  they  are 
the  children  of  professional  men,  of  the  leading 
officers  of  the  government,  of  men  of  large 
means  ;  as  well  as  of  teachers  on  small  salaries, 
of  farmers  on  small  farms,  and  of  village  shop 
keepers.  The  college  woman  has  long  ceased 

236 


SCHOOL  AND   COLLEGE 

to  be  a  marked  person;  she  is  taken  for 
granted  in  every  community ;  and  she  is  fore 
most  in  all  kinds  of  good  work.  Colleges  for 
women  have  come  into  existence  in  all  parts 
of  the  country ;  many  of  them  well  endowed, 
amply  and  often  nobly  housed,  and  offering 
courses  which  parallel  the  courses  in  the  col 
leges  for  men  and  lead  to  the  same  degrees 
upon  almost  identical  conditions.  Vassar  Col 
lege,  founded  in  1865,  led  the  way  in  providing 
for  the  higher  education  of  women  and  remains 
in  the  forefront ;  but  Smith,  Bryn  Mawr,  Mt. 
Holyoke,  Radcliffe,  Wells,  Wellesley  and  other 
institutions  of  high  rank  have  come  into  being 
in  response  to  an  ever- widening  demand ;  and 
to-day  one  of  the  most  serious  problems  which 
colleges  for  women  face  is  the  overtaxing  of 
their  facilities  for  housing  and  teaching  an 
army  of  eager  girls. 

While  college  education  for  women  was  in 
the  experimental  stage,  the  courses  closely 
paralleled  those  in  colleges  for  men ;  but 
college  training  for  women  has  demonstrated 
its  usefulness  and  is  as  much  a  part  of  the 
American  system  as  college  training  for  men, 

237 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

and  a  distinct  differentiation  of  educational 
material  and  method  is  taking  place;  the 
colleges  for  women  giving  increasing  attention 
to  science  as  applied  to  the  home,  to  sanita 
tion,  to  the  chemistry  of  foods  and  to  house 
hold  economics.  That  line  of  cleavage  will 
become  more  apparent  as  time  goes  on,  and 
the  college  will  apply  science  to  home  making 
and  home  keeping  as  it  applies  science  to 
the  various  occupations  in  which  men  are 
engaged. 

The  influence  of  the  English  university  on 
the  American  college  is  seen  in  the  great  im 
portance  attached  to  physical  well-being  in 
the  various  forms  of  sport.  Americans  were 
slow  to  follow  the  mother  country  in  its  de 
votion  to  sport,  but  during  the  last  quarter 
of  a  century  they  have  developed  a  love  of 
athletics  which  has  created  a  different  at 
mosphere,  not  only  in  the  colleges  but  in  the 
country.  It  is  often  said  in  Europe  that 
Americans  are  absorbed  in  business ;  but  no 
one  can  read  the  long,  detailed  and  technical 
reports  of  sports  by  land  and  water,  which 
are  as  much  a  feature  of  the  daily  newspaper 

238 


SCHOOL  AND   COLLEGE 

in  America  as  cable  dispatches  from  Tokyo, 
Paris,  Berlin  or  London,  without  recognizing 
the  keen  and  well-nigh  universal  interest  in 
these  matters.  Nor  can  any  one  see  the 
crowds  that  hang  breathless  on  the  issue  of 
games  of  baseball  and  football,  or  hear  the 
thunder  of  the  cheers  that  roll  in  great  waves 
across  hotly  combatted  college  fields,  with 
out  sharing  the  eagerness  of  spirit  with  which 
Americans  play  as  well  as  work.  Save  in 
pioneering  and  agricultural  districts,  Ameri 
cans  were  once  an  indoors  people ;  they  are 
now  an  out-of-doors  people,  proficient  not 
only  in  sport  of  all  kinds  but  finding  keen  de 
light  in  the  life  of  the  woods  and  in  the  open 
air. 

For  many  years  the  growing  interest  in 
athletics  among  students  was  looked  upon 
with  apprehension  by  men  bred  in  the  older 
college  traditions,  and  there  has  been  some 
ground  for  that  apprehension.  Too  much 
time  has  been  devoted  to  athletics,  the  per 
spective  of  values  has  been  distorted,  and  the 
heroes  of  the  undergraduate '  world  have  been 
not  the  winners  of  the  prizes  in  intellectual 

239 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

contests  but  the  champion  kicker  and  quarter 
back,  the  pitcher  and  batter  who  play  base 
ball  with  the  precision  of  the  great  billiard 
experts.  The  intercollegiate  contests  have 
brought  in  a  keen  competitive  spirit  and  laid 
too  great  a  burden  of  business  management 
on  undergraduates.  At  the  annual  football 
contest  between  Yale  and  Harvard  forty 
thousand  people  are  often  present,  the  money 
received  for  admissions  at  the  gates  exceeds 
seventy -five  thousand  dollars.  The  univer 
sity  has  a  stadium  which  seats  thirty-eight 
thousand  spectators. 

The  evils  of  excessive  devotion  to  athletics 
are  being  remedied;  its  benefits  are  many 
and  great.  The  games  are  fundamentally 
educational ;  many  who  visit  Oxford  and 
Cambridge  in  the  spring  and  early  summer 
and  find  the  student  body  on  the  fields  and 
the  river  do  not  realize  that  these  sports, 
pursued  in  the  amateur  spirit,  are  as  valuable 
a  feature  of  university  training  as  the  work 
done  in  the  lecture  rooms  and  the  laboratory. 
They  make  men  of  great  physical  vigor  and 
endurance,  of  vigorous  will  and  ability  to 

240 


SCHOOL  AND   COLLEGE 

gain  or  lose  with  equal  steadiness.  Much 
of  the  organizing  power  and  the  unyielding 
courage  which  have  made  the  English  name 
respected  at  the  ends  of  the  earth  were  de 
veloped  on  the  fields  of  the  Public  Schools 
and  of  the  Universities  which  have  trained 
the  leaders  of  the  state  at  home  and  abroad. 

Physical  training  of  scientific  thoroughness 
is  a  feature  of  the  American  college  and  has  a 
place  in  the  educational  system  almost  as  im 
portant  as  that  which  the  Greeks  gave  it. 
Lacking  the  artistic  sense  which  made  Greek 
athletics  sculpturesque,  American  athletics 
have  raised  the  moral  standards  of  the  under 
graduate  community  by  supplying  legitimate 
channels  for  the  overflowing  energies  of  youth, 
by  teaching  the  laws  of  health,  and  by  defining 
manly  ideals  of  life.  In  Yale  University, 
which  has  long  been  a  leader  in  college  ath 
letics,  there  is  a  phrase  which  expresses  what  is 
called  the  Yale  spirit:  "fair  play  and  team 
play."  This  phrase  means  that  in  all  con 
tests  the  game  shall  be  played  according  to 
the  rules  and  that  the  players  shall  so  sub 
ordinate  themselves  that  the  team  shall  play 
R  241 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

as  one  man.  No  country  has  been  more 
fortunate  than  Japan  in  the  training  of  a 
thousand  years  in  "team  play,"  nor  has  any 
ever  given  a  more  striking  demonstration  of 
its  effectiveness.  The  members  of  the  base 
ball  and  football  teams  in  American  colleges 
submit  to  rules  of  living  far  more  rigid  than 
those  which  govern  the  army,  and  to  a  dis 
cipline  in  subordination  and  obedience  not 
less  exacting.  The  games  have  become  largely 
contests  of  skill;  they  are  won  by  strategy, 
by  signals  for  which  every  man  waits,  and 
by  the  devotion  which  capitalizes  the  total 
strength  and  skill  of  a  group  of  men  and 
directs  them  as  a  commander  directs  his 
troops  when  the  battle  is  on. 

The  vital  interest  which  students  take  in 
athletics  is  one  of  the  various  forms  through 
which  the  college  community  expresses  it 
self ;  for  in  the  American  college  the  curric 
ulum  and  the  scheme  of  training  are  parts  of 
that  larger  whole  which  is  called  college  life, 
and  which  defines  the  whole  range  of  student 
interests  and  activities :  the  social  intercourse, 
which  is  generally  of  a  most  wholesome  and 


SCHOOL  AND   COLLEGE 

manly  kind,  the  generous  opportunity  for 
fellowship  and  friendship,  the  literary  asso 
ciations,  the  free  discussion  of  all  open  ques 
tions,  —  and  to-day  there  are  no  closed  ques 
tions,  -  -  the  scientific  societies  which  bring 
together  small  groups  of  men  of  kindred 
tastes,  the  publication  of  newspapers  and 
magazines,  and  the  dramatic  organizations; 
these  activities  supplement  and  sometimes 
supplant  the  regular  work  which  the  under 
graduate  is  supposed  to  do.  The  card  on  the 
wall  of  a  student's  room  which  read  "in  this 
room  study  if  not  allowed  to  interfere  with 
the  regular  course  of  college  life"  was  not 
wholly  humorous ;  for  athletic,  literary,  jour 
nalistic  and  social  interests  are  so  many  that 
the  popular  student  has  little  time  for  serious 
study. 

In  the  older  colleges  there  is  a  good  deal  of 
picturesque  idleness ;  there  is  very  little  vice, 
but  much  wasting  of  time.  A  majority  of 
students,  however,  pursue  their  work  with 
fidelity  if  not  with  enthusiasm,  and  get  a 
kind  of  atmospheric  education  which  makes 
them  more  agreeable  companions  and  more 

243 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

interesting  men.  For  college  life  is  regulated 
by  generous  ideals  of  honor,  of  friendship, 
and  of  loyalty,  which  have  a  more  penetrating 
influence  than  most  teachers  are  able  to  com 
mand;  and  the  sentiment  which  inspires 
college  songs,  and  which  stirs  the  heart  of 
the  graduate  long  years  afterwards,  is  an  ex 
pression  of  the  generous  idealism  which  is  or 
ought  to  be  the  unfailing  offering  of  youth  to 
the  well-being  of  the  race. 

The  American  college  is  a  product  of 
American  conditions  and  holds  a  large  place 
in  the  interest  and  affection  of  the  people. 
It  perpetuates  the  tradition  of  liberal  learn 
ing  which  had  its  modern  birth  in  the  Uni 
versity  of  Paris  in  the  Middle  Ages,  which 
has  given  to  Oxford  and  Cambridge  a  quality 
that  has  enriched  the  literature  and  the  life 
of  the  English  people ;  and  which,  carried 
across  the  sea,  has  been  shared  by  a  great 
Democracy  without  loss  of  its  largeness  of 
vision  and  its  power  of  liberating  men  from 
the  narrowness  of  local  interests  and  pro 
vincial  prejudices. 


244 


IX 
UNIVERSITY  AND  RESEARCH  WORK 

THE  college  in  America  preceded  the  uni 
versity  because  it  was  needed  earlier  in  the 
development  of  the  country ;  and,  with 
loyalty  to  certain  deep-seated  traditions  which 
came  with  the  colonists,  it  has  adapted  itself 
to  American  conditions.  In  no  other  country 
are  the  higher  institutions  of  learning  more 
intimately  related  to  the  life  of  the  people. 
This  is  seen  in  the  large  space  given  to  college 
affairs  in  the  daily  newspapers,  and  in  the 
position  of  the  heads  of  colleges  and  universi 
ties  in  public  regard. 

The  educational  leaders  are  public  men  as 
truly  as  the  governors  of  States  or  the  mem 
bers  of  the  President's  Cabinet.  They  are 
almost  invariably  represented  on  all  com 
missions  appointed  by  the  government  to 
study  industrial,  social  or  political  conditions ; 
they  are  called  upon  to  interpret  public 
events  on  notable  occasions;  they  are  often 

245 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

appointed  to  fill  the  most  distinguished  posi 
tions  in  the  gift  of  the  government.  When 
President  Lincoln  made  the  address  at  Gettys 
burg,  which  is  one  of  the  classics  of  American 
oratory  and  the  noblest  definition  of  American 
political  ideals,  the  formal  oration  was  de 
livered  by  an  ex-President  of  Harvard  Uni 
versity,  who  had  also  been  American  Ambas 
sador,  or  Minister,  in  London ;  John  Quincy 
Adams,  the  fifth  President  of  the  United 
States,  held  a  professorship  in  the  same  in 
stitution.  Lowell,  who  at  a  later  time  taught 
literature  in  Harvard,  was  one  of  the  most 
influential  diplomatists  ever  sent  by  the 
United  States  to  London.  The  head  of  the 
University  of  Michigan  represented  his  coun 
try  at  Constantinople  during  the  Spanish- 
American  War.  The  President  of  Cornell 
University  is  now  American  Minister  in 
Athens.  The  retirement  of  Dr.  Eliot  from 
the  presidency  of  Harvard  was  made  the  sub 
ject  of  extended  editorial  comment  by  the 
newspapers  from  Boston  to  San  Francisco ; 
and  Signor  Ferraro,  the  Italian  historian  who 
was  then  in  the  United  States,  declared  that 

246 


UNIVERSITY  AND  RESEARCH  WORK 

in  no  other  country  would  the  retirement  of 
the  head  of  a  university  awaken  such  wide 
spread  public  interest.  And  it  is  an  open 
secret  that  the  position  of  Ambassador  to 
Great  Britain  was  offered  to  Dr.  Eliot  and 
declined. 

Although  higher  education  in  America  is 
not  under  governmental  control,  the  needs  of 
the  country  have  largely  determined  its  scope 
and  direction,  and  the  university  has  been 
as  definitely  the  creation  of  American  con 
ditions  as  the  college.  It  was  the  product  of 
a  later  age.  The  personality  of  teachers  does 
not  count  for  so  much  as  in  the  college ;  it  is 
further  removed  from  the  life  of  the  country 
in  the  sense  that  the  average  citizen  does  not 
feel  so  much  at  home  with  it  as  with  the 
college  to  which,  often  with  great  self-sacrifice, 
he  has  sent  his  children. 

In  the  Central  and  Far  West,  however,  he 
has  had  a  great  deal  more  to  do  with  the  shap 
ing  of  the  university  and  the  direction  of  its 
activities  than  with  the  making  of  the  college. 
The  college  was  inherited;  it  was  brought 
over  the  sea  with  the  religious  convictions 

247 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

and  social  habits  of  his  ancestors;  the  uni 
versity,  as  he  knows  it,  was  born  in  his  own 
state  and  has  grown  up  with  the  society  in 
which  he  lives. 

In  many  parts  of  America  the  granting  of 
degrees  is  within  the  power  of  those  institu 
tions  only  which  conform  to  certain  educa 
tional  standards,  but  in  other  parts  of  the 
country  the  words  college  and  university  are 
sometimes  assumed  by  institutions  of  a  high 
school  grade.  In  this  field,  as  in  others,  the 
foreign  observer  must  know  local  conditions 
so  to  speak.  An  authority  on  such  matters 
has  expressed  the  opinion  that  of  the  several 
hundred  so-called  colleges  in  the  United  States 
there  are  a  hundred  and  twenty -five,  perhaps 
one  third  of  the  number,  which  are  effective, 
high-class  institutions.  The  other  so-called 
colleges  often  serve  a  useful  purpose.  They 
are  open  doors  to  a  large  number  of  boys  and 
girls  in  remote  localities,  who  would  otherwise 
get  only  a  common  school  education.  They 
often  grow  into  colleges;  their  fault  is  their 
misleading  assumption  of  a  rank  to  which 
they  are  not  entitled. 

248 


UNIVERSITY  AND  RESEARCH  WORK 

Of  endowed  universities  there  are  perhaps 
fifteen  or  twenty ;  and  they  are  all  of  com 
paratively  recent  date.  Some  of  them  have 
developed  from  long-established  colleges; 
more  have  been  founded  and  built  up  within 
the  last  four  or  five  decades.  One  of  the  most 
influential,  the  Johns  Hopkins,  recently  cele 
brated  its  twenty-fifth  anniversary,  and  the 
University  of  Chicago,  one  of  the  most  amply 
equipped  and  vigorous  of  these  younger  in 
stitutions,  has  not  yet  reached  its  quarter  of  a 
century. 

Among  the  first  group,  Harvard,  Yale, 
Columbia,  have  grown  by  a  normal  process 
of  evolution  out  of  the  old  American  college. 
They  have  gradually  enlarged  the  scope  of 
studies  to  meet  the  needs  of  a  new  economic 
age  and  have  changed  their  organization  and 
administration  to  cope  with  vastly  increased 
numbers  of  teachers  and  students,  not  only 
by  widening  the  field  of  study  but  by  the 
development  of  more  adequate  methods  of 
administration.  Columbia  University,  in  the 
city  of  New  York,  enrolls  about  six  thousand 
students,  and  has  an  endowment  of  about 

249 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

1,000,000.  Thirty  years  ago  it  had  an 
attendance  of  three  or  four  hundred.  It  has 
grown  with  the  country  and  is  in  itself  a 
history  of  American  educational  progress. 
Beginning  in  the  early  days  of  the  colonies 
as  a  high  school,  it  took  on  later  the  form 
and  functions  of  a  college  because  colleges 
were  demanded  by  students  who  wished  more 
advanced  methods  and  studies.  As  the  need 
for  special  training  for  the  professions  be 
came  more  general,'  the  college  gradually 
transformed  itself  into  a  university. 

A  few  of  these  institutions,  like  the  Johns 
Hopkins  University,  the  University  of  Chicago 
and  the  Leland  Stanford  University  in  Cali 
fornia,  were  established  by  large  endowments 
from  private  persons.  The  gifts  of  the  founder 
of  the  University  of  Chicago  to  that  institu 
tion  exceed  forty  millions  of  dollars.  In 
several  instances  a  university  has  been  com 
pletely  organized  in  advance ;  a  group  of 
buildings  planned,  a  large  group  of  teachers 
secured,  and  libraries  and  laboratories 
equipped  for  work.  The  rapid  construction 
of  buildings  of  recent  years,  in  which  im- 

250 


UNIVERSITY  AND  RESEARCH  WORK 

proved  machinery  and  continuous  labor  se 
cure  speedy  results  without  loss  of  solidity  or 
thoroughness,  has  been  paralleled  in  the  es 
tablishment  of  colleges  and  universities.  Such 
institutions  lack  the  traditions  and  associa 
tions  with  eminent  persons  which  give  the 
older  schools  an  atmosphere  that  appeals  to 
the  imagination  and  defines  the  standards  of 
achievement ;  but  they  often  become  from 
the  start  highly  effective,  not  only  in  impart 
ing  knowledge  but  in  the  field  of  research. 
Within  a  decade  of  its  foundation  the  pub 
lications  of  the  Johns  Hopkins  University 
found  place  in  the  reading  rooms  of  European 
universities  and  were  read  by  scholars  in  all 
parts  of  the  world.  The  first  President  of 
this  university  adopted  a  policy,  not  always 
pursued  in  America,  of  using  large  means,  not 
to  erect  great  buildings  but  to  bring  together 
distinguished  scholars  in  the  teaching  body. 

A  third  and  larger  group  of  universities 
has  come  into  existence  to  meet  the  de 
mand  for  free  education  by  the  States.  From 
modest  beginnings  these  institutions  have 
grown  into  thoroughly  equipped  schools,  num- 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

bering  their  attendance  by  thousands,  and 
commanding  great  incomes  yielded  by  a  small 
percentage  of  the  total  tax  laid  by  the  State 
upon  its  citizens.  The  practical  use  of  these 
institutions  in  the  development  of  the  agri 
cultural,  mining  and,  manufacturing  interests 
of  the  State  have  been  so  obvious  that  the 
taxpayers  not  only  support  but  enforce  a 
policy  of  generous  appropriations  for  their 
support  in  the  legislatures ;  and  the  remote 
small  farmer  feels  that  the  university  stands 
ready,  not  only  to  educate  his  children  but  to 
help  him  develop  his  farm.  The  head  of  one 
of  these  institutions  said  not  long  ago  that  his 
difficulty  lay  not  in  getting  money  but  in 
wisely  expending  it.  In  the  previous  years 
his  university  has  received  from  the  State  a 
sum  of  money  equivalent  to  the  income  of  an 
endowment  of  forty  million  dollars.  From 
feeble  beginnings  in  Georgia,  Tennessee  and 
North  Carolina  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century  State  institutions  doing  thorough 
work  are  to  be  found ;  while  in  all  the  Western 
and  in  many  other  Southern  States  the  state 
universities  are  housed  in  buildings  of  great 


UNIVERSITY  AND   RESEARCH  WORK 

size,  though  not  always  of  impressive  archi 
tecture,  and  probably  include  in  their  mem 
bership  three  fourths  of  the  three  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  students  in  the  American 
colleges  and  universities. 

In  the  majority  of  these  state  institutions 
the  courses  of  study  are  practical  and  voca 
tional,  though  other  studies  are  pursued ; 
and  the  alertness  and  intellectual  activity  of 
the  typical  western  college  student  keep  him 
in  touch  with  all  the  interests  of  the  day. 
In  the  West  all  these  institutions  are  largely 
attended  by  women. 

The  word  university  is  applied  in  America 
to  institutions  of  widely  different  types  and 
standards.  It  may  mean  a  State  university 
which  offers  a  great  variety  of  practical  studies 
and  directs  its  research  work  chiefly  if  not 
wholly  to  applied  science,  in  its  relations  to 
agriculture  and  industry.  It  may  mean,  and 
for  many  years  it  did  mean,  a  college  which 
has  affiliated  with  itself  schools  of  medicine, 
law  and  theology.  Yale  represents  this  type. 
It  may  mean  an  institution  in  which  oppor 
tunities  for  advanced  work  are  afforded,  as 

253 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

in  Harvard  and  the  Johns  Hopkins.  It 
may  mean  an  institution  which  provides 
courses  of  study  in  all  departments  of  applied 
science.  Lehigh  is  a  typical  institution  of 
this  kind.  Or  it  may  mean  an  institution 
devoted  exclusively  to  laboratory  methods 
and  research  work,  for  graduate  students. 
Clark  University  is  a  leader  in  this  field. 

Of  universities  in  the  European  sense  there 
are  perhaps  fifteen  or  twenty  in  the  United 
States,  and  these  are  organized  largely  on  the 
lines  of  the  German  Universities.  The  first 
direct  educational  influence  from  Europe 
which  made  itself  felt  in  America  was  English. 
Eighty-five  years  ago  the  first  group  of 
American  students  went  to  the  German  Uni 
versities  after  completing  the  college  course  at 
home.  Their  number  gradually  increased, 
for  American  youth  were  eager  to  carry  their 
studies  further  than  the  American  colleges 
made  possible.  By  the  middle  of  the  last 
century  men  trained  under  German  methods 
were  represented  on  the  faculties  of  the  most 
progressive  colleges,  and  under  German  in 
fluence  these  institutions  were  gradually  modi- 

254 


UNIVERSITY  AND  RESEARCH  WORK 

fied  to  conform  more  closely  to  the  German 
model.  The  English  type  gave  place  in  con 
siderable  measure  to  the  German  type ;  and, 
while  the  English  Grammar  School  stood  as  a 
model  for  the  early  classical  school  in  the 
colonies,  and  Oxford  and  Cambridge  fur 
nished  the  ideals  of  the  American  college,  the 
German  Universities  have  greatly  influenced 
the  organization,  methods  and  aims  of  Ameri 
can  universities.  For  many  years  there  was 
an  increasing  attendance  of  Americans  in 
Berlin,  Heidelberg  and  other  German  institu 
tions,  and  the  opportunities  for  advanced 
work  at  home  were  so  limited  that  the  student 
who  looked  forward  to  an  academic  career  was 
practically  compelled  to  supplement  his  study 
at  home  by  study  in  some  foreign  university ; 
to  have  studied  abroad  was  not  formally  re 
quired  of  the  men  who  sought  places  as 
teachers  in  the  American  colleges ;  but  it 
was  so  generally  expected  that  the  man  who 
lacked  it  was  seriously  handicapped. 

This  German  influence,  largely  scientific  in 
its  direction,  was  reenforced  by  the  increasing 
demand  for  men  of  scientific  training  in  many 

255 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

important  industries.  It  led  to  the  introduc 
tion  of  the  elective  system,  to  the  breaking 
up  of  the  classes  into  divisions,  to  the  widen 
ing  of  the  field  of  study;  and  to  a  readjust 
ment  of  educational  values.  It  shifted  the 
emphasis  from  the  Humanities  to  the  sciences, 
and  put  discipline  and  training  on  a  level  with 
culture  as  the  chief  ends  of  education. 

German  methods  have  not  been  slavishly 
followed,  however,  and  the  German  influence 
is  neither  so  direct  nor  so  obvious  as  it  was 
twenty  years  ago.  Americans  have  adopted 
what  was  valuable  for  American  uses  in 
German  methods  as  they  had  earlier  adopted 
what  was  valuable  in  English  methods,  and 
have  worked  out  their  own  educational  scheme. 
To  the  English  universities  that  scheme  is 
greatly  indebted  for  the  classical  tradition 
with  its  emphasis  on  quality  and  richness  of 
the  intellectual  life,  and  to  the  German  uni 
versities  for  a  greatly  enlarged  range  of  study, 
for  more  thorough  and  scientific  methods  of 
work,  for  a  strong  impetus  toward  original 
investigation,  and  for  high  standards  of  tech 
nical  training.  The  German  influence  has 

256 


UNIVERSITY  AND  RESEARCH  WORK 

involved  some  loss  of  interest  in  classical  and 
literary  studies  and  has  blunted  somewhat 
the  sense  of  form  and  the  feeling  for  the  finer 
qualities  of  literary  expression;  it  substi 
tuted  literary  scholarship  for  love  of  liter 
ature  and  for  a  time  made  the  study  of  Eng 
lish  largely  a  matter  of  philology.  But  the 
pendulum  is  swinging  back,  and  in  the  teach 
ing  of  English  the  literary  spirit  is  making 
itself  felt  with  an  increasing  effectiveness. 
In  this  field  the  French  influence  has  come  to 
the  aid  of  the  earlier  ideals  of  literary  study. 

Opportunities  for  advanced  work  in  the 
American  Universities  are  now  so  ample  that 
study  in  foreign  universities,  while  not  with 
out  its  advantages,  is  no  longer  a  necessity, 
and  the  number  of  Americans  in  German  uni 
versities  has  greatly  fallen  off. 

The  need  of  highly  trained  men  in  many 
kinds  of  business,  in  enterprises  requiring 
engineering  skill  of  a  high  order,  in  mining, 
agriculture  and  the  construction  and  manage 
ment  of  railroads,  has  called  into  existence  a 
large  number  of  high-grade  institutions  of  a 
scientific  character,  among  the  most  promi- 

257 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

nent  of  which  are  the  Boston  Institute  of 
Technology,  the  Stevens  Institute,  the  Troy 
Polytechnic,  the  Columbia  School  of  Mines, 
and  Lehigh  University.  These  and  other 
kindred  institutions  are  scientific  universities. 
In  no  department  have  the  standards  of 
preparation  been  more  rapidly  advanced  than 
in  teaching.  Pedagogy  is  comparatively  a 
new  science  in  America,  but  it  has  taken  a 
place  of  the  first  importance  in  public  regard. 
In  the  higher  grades  of  school  work,  college 
and  normal  school  degrees  or  certificates  are 
now  required.  The  State  universities  have 
made  ample  provision  for  pedagogic  training, 
normal  schools  are  part  of  the  public  school 
system  in  every  state;  and  in  the  Teachers 
College,  affiliated  with  Columbia  University 
in  New  York,  advanced  courses  in  educational 
work  are  provided  and  are  attended  by  large 
numbers  of  students  whose  enthusiasm  is  the 
best  evidence  of  the  vitality  of  its  methods. 
In  Clark  University,  an  institution  for  re 
search  which  is  doing  a  notable  work  in  train 
ing  teachers  for  colleges  and  universities,  this 
department  is  specially  well  equipped,  and  its 

258 


UNIVERSITY  AND  RESEARCH  WORK 

President,  Dr.  G.  Stanley  Hall,  has  been  one  of 
the  prophets  of  pedagogy  in  America. 

There  is  a  marked  tendency  to  bring  tech 
nical  training  of  all  kinds  into  close  relation 
with  the  universities.  Many  medical,  law 
and  theological  schools,  and  schools  of  ap 
plied  science,  were  originally  established  on  an 
independent  basis  and  the  entrance  require 
ments  made  it  possible  for  men  to  specialize 
on  a  very  inadequate  foundation  of  general 
knowledge.  The  medical  student  came  to 
his  professional  studies  without  even  a  high 
school  diploma ;  he  often  went  straight  from 
the  farm  to  the  lecture  room  and  the  clinic; 
and  this  was  also  true  in  a  measure  of  the 
theological  and  law  student.  This  lack  of  co 
ordination  no  longer  exists  ;  many  professional 
schools  are  open  only  to  students  who  have 
completed  a  college  course  or  its  equivalent; 
and  those  schools  which  have  grown  up  as  inde 
pendent  institutions  have  affiliated  themselves 
with  universities  and,  without  losing  their  in 
dividuality,  have  come  into  relations  with  other 
departments  of  knowledge  and  have  con 
formed  to  more  scientific  methods  of  teaching. 

259 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

Meantime,  as  has  been  said,  the  colleges 
have  modified  their  courses  so  as  to  offer  the 
student  opportunities  of  taking  some  of  his 
professional  work  as  part  of  his  college  work 
and  in  this  way  shortening  the  time  to  his 
ultimate  graduation.  This  tendency  will  un 
doubtedly  lead  in  the  end  to  the  complete 
cooperation  of  the  professional  school  and  the 
university  and  to  the  taking  over  by  the  uni 
versity  of  all  forms  of  advanced  training. 
This  will  mean  not  only  greater  economy  and 
efficiency  of  management,  but  broader  oppor 
tunities  for  the  professional  student,  the  freer 
atmosphere  of  university  life  and  a  better 
perspective  of  life  in  general. 

The  universities  fill  a  great  place  in  America 
and  are  steadily  increasing  their  influence. 
They  guard  the  gates  of  the  professions  and 
challenge  the  applicant  for  admission  to  prove 
his  fitness  to  discharge  the  duties  that 
fall  to  him.  They  have  largely  created  the 
demand  for  thorough  preparation  for  the 
pursuit  of  callings,  which,  like  the  practice  of 
law  and  of  medicine,  are  essentially  public 
functions  and  require  public  regulation. 

260 


UNIVERSITY  AND  RESEARCH  WORK 

They  teach  the  army  of  teachers  whose  func 
tion  is  also  a  public  function.  They  train 
the  chemists,  engineers  and  men  of  affairs 
upon  whose  integrity  and  skill  the  nation  de 
pends  for  safety  and  prosperity.  Their  in 
fluence  has  contributed  to  the  movement 
which  is  taking  the  administrative  side  of  the 
government  out  of  politics  and  placing  it  on 
a  basis  of  merit  and  permanency  of  tenure. 
To  them  is  committed  the  work  of  advancing 
knowledge  by  investigation  and  research; 
not  only  by  "seeking  knowledge  wherever  it 
may  be  found,"  to  recall  a  noble  phrase  of  the 
late  Emperor  of  Japan,  but  to  add  to  that 
capital  of  knowledge  which  is  the  common 
possession  of  all  nations.  They  have  already 
removed  the  reproach  that  American  scholar 
ship,  while  highly  effective  in  transmitting 
knowledge,  has  made  no  notable  contribu 
tions  to  its  sum  total.  The  work  of  educa 
tion  in  a  new  country  was  immediate  and  en 
grossing,  but  the  time  has  now  come  when 
the  universities  are  able  to  take  their  place 
with  institutions  in  the  Old  World  in  advanc 
ing  the  skirmish  line  of  knowledge. 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

A  group  of  great  foundations  have  been 
created  during  the  past  few  years,  which  aim 
not  only  to  provide  for  and  promote  research, 
but  to  reenforce  the  specific  endowments  for 
higher  education.  The  Carnegie  Institution 
of  Washington  administers  a  fund  of  about 
$42,000,000,  which  may  be  regarded  as  the 
capitalization  of  research.  The  directors  of 
this  fund  are  given  large  discretion  in  the 
selection  of  objects,  persons  or  enterprises  to 
be  aided;  the  general  purpose  being  to  give 
support  to  forms  of  research  which  require 
prolonged  effort,  to  provide  opportunities 
for  original  work  by  men  of  notable  ability 
and  efficiency,  and  to  make  possible  the  pub 
lication  of  the  results  of  these  ventures  in  the 
field  of  knowledge.  The  income  of  this  fund 
may  be  devoted  to  scientific,  geographical,  or 
purely  scholarly  investigation,  and  may  be 
expended  in  a  variety  of  enterprises  or  con 
centrated  in  some  field  in  which  the  need  or 
the  immediate  promise  of  greater  knowledge 
is  pressing. 

The  Rockefeller  Institute  for  Medical  Re 
search  in  the  city  of  New  York  is  an  experi- 


UNIVERSITY  AND  RESEARCH  WORK 

ment  station  for  the  investigation  of  diseases 
and  of  possible  prevention  and  remedies. 
It  has  already  rendered  signal  service  to  the 
country  by  putting  expert  service  in  coopera 
tion  with  the  medical  profession,  by  stimulat 
ing  the  scientific  spirit  in  that  profession,  and 
by  concentrating  investigation  on  pressing 
medical  problems. 

The  widest  field  of  work  is  that  occupied 
by  the  General  Education  Board,  which  ad 
ministers  various  large  funds.  The  activities 
of  this  board  are  directed  to  three  main  pur 
poses  :  the  improvement  of  agriculture  in  the 
Southern  States,  the  development  of  high 
schools  in  that  section,  and  the  promotion  of 
higher  education  in  all  parts  of  the  country. 
This  fund  amounts  to  nearly  $33,000,000,  and 
the  net  income  is  about  $1,700,000.  Last 
year  forty-two  colleges  were  aided  by  gifts 
amounting  to  $1,300,000.  Large  sums  were 
devoted  to  demonstration  work  for  farmers 
and  for  the  reenforcement  of  schools  in  the 
south. 

A  fund  which  constitutes  a  great  endow 
ment  for  the  colleges  and  universities  in  the 

263 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

country  which  meet  certain  tests  of  educa 
tional  efficiency  is  administered  by  the  Car 
negie  Foundation  for  the  Advancement  of 
Teaching,  which  distributes  annually  the  in 
come  of  $15,000,000  in  retiring  allowances 
for  college  and  university  teachers  who  have 
reached  the  age  of  sixty -five  years  and  have 
been  in  service  for  twenty-five  years.  In 
1910  the  number  of  beneficiaries  of  this  fund 
was  364,  and  the  average  allowance  paid  was 
nearly  $1,900,000.  This  provision  for  the  old 
age  of  teachers  has  contributed  greatly  to  the 
stability  and  attractiveness  of  academic  teach 
ing  ;  and,  reenforced  by  the  pension  systems 
of  individual  colleges,  has  relieved  a  host  of 
able  and  devoted  men  rendering  the  highest 
service  to  the  nation  on  salaries  too  small  to 
make  provision  for  old  age  possible,  of  the 
pressure  of  anxiety  for  the  future  support  of 
their  families.  In  many  colleges  provision  is 
made  for  a  year's  leave  of  absence  on  half- 
salary  every  seven  years. 

Large  funds  are  also  expended  by  the 
Southern  Education  Board,  which  has  greatly 
stimulated  educational  progress  in  the  South- 

264 


UNIVERSITY  AND  RESEARCH  WORK 

ern  States,  and  deals  with  educational  con 
ditions  in  that  part  of  the  country  from  a 
strategic  point  of  view;  concentrating  its 
help  at  points  where  the  need  of  immediate 
assistance  is  most  pressing. 

The  Russell  Sage  Foundation,  organized 
five  years  ago  with  an  endowment  of 
$10,000,000,  has  for  its  object  the  investiga 
tion  and  eradication,  so  far  as  is  possible,  of 
"The  Causes  of  Poverty  and  Ignorance," 
and  its  work  is  already  beginning  to  show 
fruit.  It  serves  among  other  purposes  as  a 
center  of  information  concerning  the  work  of 
hundreds  of  social  settlements,  improvement 
clubs  and  organizations  for  social  betterment 
maintained  by  women's  clubs,  college  societies 
and  private  organizations  in  cities  in  all  parts 
of  the  country.  This  fund  not  only  conducts 
investigations  but  affords  practical  relief. 

In  a  broader  field  a  work  of  high  educational 
importance  is  conducted  by  the  Carnegie 
Endowment  for  International  Peace,  which 
expends  yearly  the  income  of  a  fund  of 
$10,000,000,  in  the  maintenance  of  a  division 
of  international  law  which  is  collecting  all 

265 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

the  data  bearing  on  international  arbitration ; 
a  Division  of  Economics  and  History,  which  is 
making  a  scientific  study  of  the  historical  and 
economic  causes  of  war;  and  a  Division  of 
Intercourse  and  Education. 

These  funds  constitute  a  great  endowment 
for  advanced  and  aggressive  educational  work 
in  the  United  States,  and  show  the  widespread 
interest  in  education  among  Americans,  and 
their  faith  in  its  efficiency  in  the  development 
of  the  national  resources  and  life.  During 
the  last  decade  the  gifts  from  private  donors 
for  education  have  aggregated  at  least 
$100,000,000. 


266 


X 

THE   AMERICAN  AND   HIS 
GOVERNMENT 

THE  stages  of  growth  through  which  Japan, 
India,  China,  England  and  the  nations  of 
Europe  passed  in  the  legendary  age  the  United 
States  passed  through  under  the  eyes,  so  to 
speak,  of  the  scientific  historian.  Mystery 
envelops  the  origins  of  other  great  peoples, 
and  when  they  emerge  into  clear  light  they 
are  racially  unified  and  think,  feel  and  act  as 
nations.  They  are  jealous  of  foreign  in 
fluence  ;  they  regard  the  stranger  with  sus 
picion  and  treat  him  with  disfavor.  This  is 
the  early  history  of  every  people,  Asiatic  or 
European.  The  line  of  race  descent  is  guarded 
with  the  utmost  care  and  its  purity  becomes 
a  matter  of  national  concern.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  however,  there  is  no  absolute  purity  of 
race ;  and  there  ought  to  be  none  if  variety 
and  richness  of  temperament,  intellectual 

267 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

and  moral  trait,  capacity  for  creative  and 
practical  activity,  are  essential  to  the  com 
plete  expression  of  the  human  spirit.  It  is 
as  easy  to  trace  the  Danish,  Saxon  and  Nor 
man  strains  in  English  art  and  history  as  to 
trace  the  hand  of  these  vanished  races  in  wall 
and  road,  in  castle  and  church ;  and  English 
life  and  character  have  been  immensely  ener 
gized  and  enriched  by  this  commingling  of 
races.  To-day,  however,  we  do  not  remember 
the  Dane,  the  Saxon,  the  Norman  when  we 
speak  of  England ;  we  think  of  a  people  who 
stand  out  distinctly  from  the  peoples  which 
surround  them.  In  England,  as  in  Japan, 
the  fusion  was  accomplished  so  long  ago  that 
its  stages  have  passed  out  of  sight  and  the 
world  sees  only  a  completely  developed  nation. 
In  the  United  States  this  process  of  growth 
has  taken  place  not  behind  closed  doors  as  is 
the  case  of  other  nations,  but  in  full  view  of 
the  world ;  and  the  idea  held  by  some  writers 
that  the  Americans  are  a  conglomeration  of 
races  without  unity  of  ideal,  national  feeling 
or  tradition,  is  as  misleading  as  the  idea  that 
England  is  a  mere  aggregation  of  peoples  of 

268 


AMERICAN  AND    HIS    GOVERNMENT 

different  blood.  All  nations  are  composite. 
The  intermingling  of  races  in  America  is  only 
later  in  point  of  time;  and,  as  a  result  of  the 
American  system,  the  assimilation  of  the 
national  spirit  is  extraordinarily  rapid.  The 
atmosphere  has  a  transforming  quality. 
There  is  nothing  more  moving  in  the  United 
States  than  the  spectacle  of  two  thousand 
Jewish  children,  whose  parents  have  not  yet 
learned  to  speak  the  English  language,  rising 
in  their  places  in  the  assembly  rooms  of  one 
of  the  city  schools  to  salute  the  flag,  or  the 
ardor  with  which  a  group  of  recently  arrived 
Italian  immigrants  will  sing  the  national 
anthem. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  earlier 
settlers  in  the  New  World,  though  of  differ 
ent  races,  were  of  a  kindred  spirit.  The 
families  from  which  they  came  were  not  far 
apart  in  point  of  development;  they  were  of 
kindred  rather  than  alien  races ;  above  all, 
they  were  moved  by  a  few  powerful  motives 
which  sent  them  on  a  common  adventure, 
and  developed  in  them  qualities  which  pre 
pared  them  for  united  action.  They  differed 

269 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

widely  in  religious  convictions,  in  political 
ideals  and  in  social  habits ;  but  they  were  all 
seekers  after  a  larger  freedom  of  action,  more 
ample  opportunities  of  personal  and  family 
life.  To  secure  these  things  they  braved  great 
dangers  and  endured  great  hardships;  for  the 
most  part  they  were  adventurers  of  the  nobler 
sort;  seekers  after  the  better  fortunes  of  the 
race:  freedom  to  think  their  own  thoughts 
and  live  their  own  lives,  better  conditions 
for  their  children,  more  room  for  activity. 
Shut  off  from  Europe  by  the  peril  and 
length  of  the  voyage  across  the  ocean;  en 
circled  by  vigilant  foes ;  sharing  the  fortunes 
of  pioneers  on  a  remote  frontier,  the  colonists 
were  driven  together  by  the  conditions  in 
which  they  lived  and  by  a  colonial  policy  which 
bore  heavily  upon  them  all  and  bred  a  grow 
ing  discontent  in  every  colony.  The  English, 
the  Scotch,  the  Dutch  brought  with  them  well- 
defined  ideas  of  political  liberty;  while  the 
French,  driven  from  their  old  homes  by  the 
tyranny  of  an  arbitrary  personal  government, 
found  the  air  of  the  New  World  stimulating  to 
the  impulse  toward  freedom. 

270 


AMERICAN   AND    HIS    GOVERNMENT 

When  the  long-smoldering  antagonism 
against  Great  Britain  became  actual  rebellion, 
the  colonies  stood  together  in  a  common  cause. 
Their  unity  was  marred  by  petty  social  jeal 
ousies,  but  they  rapidly  learned  cooperation, 
and  when  the  hour  for  the  adoption  of  the 
Constitution  arrived  there  was  an  American 
people  to  accept  it  as  the  formal  organization 
of  a  nation.  Magna  Charta,  the  Bill  of 
Rights,  the  Act  of  Settlement,  registered  the 
will  of  the  English  people ;  the  Constitution 
proclaimed  in  Japan  in  1893  is  an  impressive 
revelation  of  the  hidden  forces,  the  secret 
sources  of  strength  in  the  Japanese  character ; 
but  neither  the  English  nor  the  Japanese 
nation  was  created  by  these  memorable  docu 
ments.  The  fourth  day  of  July,  on  which 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  signed 
in  1776,  is  celebrated  as  the  birthday  of  the 
United  States,  but  on  that  day  the  Americans 
were  already  a  people  in  the  same  sense  in 
which  the  English  and  Japanese  are  peoples. 
They  were  not  made  a  nation  by  written  docu 
ments  ;  they  dictated  the  documents.  The 
language  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

is  significant ;  it  is  not  a  definition  of  the  pur 
pose  of  the  colonists  to  become  independent; 
it  begins  with  the  statement  "That  these 
United  Colonies  are,  and  of  right  ought  to  be, 
free  and  independent  states."  In  other  words 
there  was  already  in  1776  an  American  people, 
who  held  a  common  view  of  their  status  and 
rights  and  were  ready  to  act  together  to  main 
tain  them.  The  different  races  were  already, 
a  century  and  a  quarter  after  the  first  feeble 
attempt  to  build  a  home  on  the  edge  of  the 
continent,  welded  together  by  common  ideals 
of  political  order  and  fused  into  one  people 
by  their  experiences  in  the  New  World. 

They  were  the  children  of  a  century  in 
which  the  human  spirit  had  a  new  birth  in 
energy  of  imagination,  in  faith  in  its  power  to 
dare  greatly  and  achieve  greatly.  Shake 
speare  in  the  world  of  creative  art;  Drake 
and  Frobisher  in  the  world  of  adventure  and 
action ;  Milton  the  singer,  and  Cromwell  the 
soldier,  half  a  century  later,  were  the  leaders 
of  a  movement  of  expansion  which  not  only 
created  a  greater  England  over  seas,  but  gave 
the  English  spirit  the  freedom  of  a  greater 


AMERICAN   AND    HIS    GOVERNMENT 

world.  The  Puritan  in  New  England ;  the 
exiled  cavalier  in  Virginia ;  the  persecuted 
Friends  in  Pennsylvania ;  the  Huguenots  in 
New  York  and  South  Carolina,  to  whom  their 
convictions  were  dearer  than  the  fair  fields  of 
France ;  the  hardy  Scotch-Irish ;  had  all  felt 
the  powerful  influence  which  had  turned  the 
eyes  of  adventurous  men  in  many  countries 
to  the  New  World,  and  daring  spirits  every 
where  had  responded  to  the  cry  heard  on  the 
Thames  in  Shakespeare's  time:  "Westward 
Ho  !"  There  were  among  the  colonists  men 
who  hated  the  rigid  formalities  of  life  in  the 
Old  World  ;  men  for  whom  the  free  life  of  the 
frontier  had  an  irresistible  attraction;  and 
there  were  also  a  small  group  who  found  in 
the  wilderness  a  refuge  from  courts  and  jails. 
To  these  builders  of  communities  along  the 
Atlantic  coast  the  spirit  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  the  age  both  of  reason  and  of  senti 
ment,  of  Hume  and  Locke,  of  Voltaire  and 
Rousseau,  of  the  daring  speculators  who  made 
ready  for  the  Revolution  in  France,  gave  not 
only  a  fresh  impulse  toward  freedom  of 
thought,  but  a  philosophical  basis  for  the 

273 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

democratic  order.  In  1776  the  colonists  were 
still  a  feeble  folk,  but  they  had  gained  self- 
confidence;  they  had  been  alienated  from 
Europe  by  a  policy  which  was  as  stupid  as  it 
was  arbitrary;  and  they  were  becoming  con 
scious  of  the  possession  of  a  vast  estate.  A 
few  among  their  leaders  already  had  visions 
of  the  nation  that  was  to  be  long  after  the  in 
dependence  had  been  achieved.  These  and 
other  influences  had  combined  to  make  an 
American  people  and  to  make  an  American 
spirit.  It  is  easier  to  describe  a  spirit  than 
to  define  it;  and  a  description  is  mainly  an 
enumeration  of  qualities.  In  such  an  analysis 
skill  lies  as  much  in  what  is  omitted  as  in 
what  is  included;  for,  while  many  qualities 
give  the  spirit  of  a  people  shading  and  pro 
portion,  a  few  qualities  give  it  the  distinction 
of  aim  and  emotional  content  which  make  it 
possible  to  differentiate  the  Japanese,  the 
French,  the  English  and  the  American  spirit. 
The  most  obvious  expression  of  the  Ameri 
can  spirit  is  the  political  organization  of  the 
nation.  Local  governments  manage  local 
affairs,  build  and  maintain  schools,  make 


AMERICAN   AND    HIS    GOVERNMENT 

roads,  enforce  sanitary  conditions,  impose  and 
collect  taxes ;  county  governments  regulate 
the  affairs  of  larger  units  of  political  organiza 
tions  ;  State  governments  direct  the  affairs  of 
the  forty-eight  States  into  which  the  country 
is  divided,  as  Japan  is  divided  into  provinces ; 
and  a  National  government,  composed  of  the 
President,  the  executive  head  of  the  govern 
ment;  the  Congress,  consisting  of  a  House  of 
Representatives  elected  directly  by  the  people; 
and  a  smaller  body,  the  Senate,  elected  by  the 
legislatures  of  the  States,  manage  the  affairs 
of  the  nations.  The  Supreme  Court,  a  group 
of  nine  judges  appointed  by  the  President 
for  life  unless  removed  by  the  very  rare  pro 
cess  of  impeachment,  has  power  to  declare 
acts  of  Congress  unconstitutional,  and  as  the 
official  interpreter  of  the  Constitution,  so  to 
speak,  has  had  a  great  part  in  shaping  the 
political  development  of  the  country. 

The  Constitution  not  only  created  the  form 
of  government  under  which  the  American 
people  have  lived  since  1789  and  defined  its 
functions,  but  definitely  limited  the  authority 
of  that  government  and  guaranteed  the  rights 

275 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

of  the  individual  citizen,  not  only  as  against 
the  invasion  of  other  citizens  but  against  their 
invasion  by  the  government  or  itself.  The 
American  Bill  of  Rights  is  incorporated  in 
the  Constitution.  Foreign  students  of  the 
American  system  have  found  it  difficult  to 
understand  because,  as  a  distinguished  Eng 
lish  publicist  has  said,  they  have  been  unable 
to  discover  where  the  supreme  power,  the 
sovereignty,  is  placed.  That  sovereignty  can 
not  be  found  in  the  government;  it  does  not 
inhere  in  the  President,  in  the  Supreme  Court 
or  in  Congress ;  nor  does  it  lodge  in  the  forty- 
eight  States  which  now  compose  the  United 
States.  The  sovereignty  is  neither  in  the 
Constitution  nor  in  the  government  organized 
under  it;  it  is  in  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  who  made  the  Constitution  and  re 
served  to  themselves  the  sole  right  to  change 
it  by  addition  or  amendment;  a  right  which 
they  have  already  exercised  sixteen  times. 
It  follows  almost  as  a  matter  of  course  that 
the  Constitution  is  a  definition  of  principles, 
not  a  code  of  laws  or  a  body  of  regulations. 
Under  this  flexible  system  American  life 
276 


AMERICAN   AND    HIS    GOVERNMENT 

has  developed  with  such  freedom  that  the  hand 
of  the  Federal  government  has  hardly  been 
felt  by  the  private  citizen.     The  system  of 
indirect  taxation  has  left  his  pocket  untouched, 
and  the  government  at  Washington  has  been 
something  about  which  he  has  talked  much, 
but  for  which,  except  in  great  crises,  he  has 
done  little ;  not  through  lack  of  patriotism 
but  because  its  demands  upon  him  have  been 
so  few.     This  freedom  from  burdens  has  made 
possible   some   of   the   problems   with   which 
Americans  are  dealing  to-day ;  entire  absence  of 
oversight  and  control  of  great  business  enter 
prises  has  made  room  for  serious  abuses  of 
privilege,  for  the'  creation  of  private  monop 
olies,    for    oppressive    discrimination    against 
individuals    and    communities,    for    indiffer 
ence  to  the  interests  both  of  the  public  and  of 
investors.     An  unexampled  prosperity  has  so 
completely    absorbed    the    activities    of    the 
country  that  the  inadequacy  of  law  to  meet 
the  new  conditions  was  not  recognized  until 
gross  abuses  began  to  stir  public  indignation 
and  call  for  governmental  action. 

The   War   between   the    States    compelled 
277 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

the  Federal  government,  as  a  matter  of  self- 
preservation,  to  assume  powers  not  before 
exercised,  and  new  conditions  have  compelled 
it  to  assume  closer  relations  with  the  life  of 
the  people ;  but  it  has  never  been  the  supreme 
expression  of  that  life.  The  sovereign  might 
have  said  at  any  moment  "Vetat,  c'est  moi" 
for  the  sovereign  is  the  people.  The  Amer 
ican  has  conceived  of  his  government  as  exist 
ing  to  keep  the  house  in  order  while  the 
family  lived  its  life  freely,  every  individual 
following  the  bent  of  his  own  genius  within 
well-defined  limits  of  social  law.  Political 
and  public  life  have  never  been  synonymous. 
There  has  been  no  lack  of  able  men  in  the 
service  of  the  government,  but  the  government 
has  been  one  of  a  number  of  channels  through 
which  the  life  of  the  nation  has  flowed.  That 
life  has  been  of  far  greater  volume  than  the 
political  history  of  the  nation  accounts  for. 
Into  the  field  of  individual  action  the 
American  government  does  not  enter;  in 
that  field,  in  which  lie  religion,  the  family 
education,  science,  professional  activity,  fi 
nance,  commerce,  business,  journalism,  there 

278 


AMERICAN   AND    HIS    GOVERNMENT 

has  been  entire  freedom  for  individual  energy 
and  ability.  Public  opinion  controls  the  gov 
ernment,  and  the  leaders  of  this  opinion  have 
been  as  often  at  the  bar,  in  the  universities, 
in  the  pulpit,  in  the  editor's  chair,  aS  in  the 
White  House  or  in  Congress. 

The  National  government  found  itself  the 
owner  of  immense  tracts  of  unoccupied  land, 
and  for  many  years  this  land  was  practically 
given  away  to  all  who  were  willing  to  develop 
it ;  and  there  are  now  three  thousand  miles  of 
farms  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  extend 
ing  over  an  area  between  Canada  and  Mexico 
a  thousand  miles  wide.  There  are,  therefore, 
an  unprecedented  number  of  private  owners 
of  property  in  the  country ;  of  men  who  have 
an  interest  in  social  and  political  stability 
and  who  will  act  as  a  conservative  force  in 
any  economic  or  social  crisis  through  which 
the  nation  may  pass.  The  national  territory 
has  been  so  vast  that  until  within  the  last  two 
decades  there  has  always  been  a  frontier. 

It  has  taken  the  Americans  nearly  three 
centuries  to  get  their  estate  under  cultivation, 
and  during  the  whole  period  of  their  existence 

279 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

as  a  people,  they  have  exhibited  contempora 
neously  all  stages  of  social  development,  from 
the  most  stable  and  conservative  to  the  most 
changeable  and  radical;  from  cities  which 
mark  the  location  of  the  earliest  colonies, 
Boston  and  New  York,  Washington  and 
Charleston,  to  the  mining  camp  and  the 
cattle  range.  This  is  one  of  the  facts  about 
America  which  foreigners  find  it  difficult  to 
understand,  and  when  they  read  of  the  robbery 
of  a  stagecoach  in  a  lonely  defile  of  the  Sierra 
Nevadas,  they  forget  that  they  are  reading  of 
a  section  still  in  the  frontier  stage  of  develop 
ment  and  not  far  removed  from  the  time  when 
isolated  communities  were  compelled  to  make 
and  execute  their  own  laws.  The  new  com 
munities  formed  by  the  continuous  stream  of 
settlers  who  have  moved  westward  have 
passed  through  all  the  stages  of  political  organ 
ization  which  have  been  characteristic  of  the 
American  system.  In  the  earliest  and  rudest 
conditions  they  have  governed  themselves; 
the  instinct  for  order  in  the  American,  devel 
oped  by  many  centuries  of  steadily  widening 
self-government,  is  so  much  a  part  of  him  that 

280 


AMERICAN   AND    HIS    GOVERNMENT 

in  the  most  remote  mining  camp,  among  men 
of  the  roughest  habits,  some  kind  of  local 
order  is  established.  As  the  communities 
have  grown,  they  have  been  organized  into 
territories,  which  is  the  final  stage  before 
statehood;  and  as  soon  as  the  population  has 
met  the  requirements,  the  territory  has  been 
admitted  as  a  state. 

The  whole  process,  however,  has  been  car 
ried  on  by  individual  initiative ;  and  not 
until  a  sufficient  number  of  individuals  have 
united  have  the  privileges  of  State  or  National 
government  been  accorded  to  them. 

Under  a  political  system  so  flexible  and  free, 
on  a  territory  of  vast  extent  awaiting  settle 
ment,  a  people  with  the  political  antecedents 
and  the  disciplinary  experience  of  the  Amer 
icans  have  exhibited  certain  traits  which  may 
be  regarded  as  national  characteristics,  creat 
ing  what  may  be  called  the  American  spirit. 

The  American  has  learned  to  take  care  of 
himself ;  he  does  not  expect  the  government  to 
take  care  of  him.  Many  of  the  services  which 
are  rendered  to  the  individual  in  other  coun 
tries  he  performs  for  himself.  He  has  so 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

long  taken  the  possession  of  individual  free 
dom  for  granted,  that  he  expects  the  govern 
ment  to  do  as  little  as  possible  for  him  or 
with  him.  He  asks  for  a  free  field  and  a 
fair  chance ;  the  rest  he  expects  to  do  for  him 
self.  He  chooses  his  own  form  of  religion,  his 
school,  his  college,  his  profession,  his  wife,  his 
place  of  residence,  his  manner  of  life,  his 
recreations.  He  objects  to  any  supervision 
of  these  personal  affairs,  and  he  is  accepting 
government  regulation  of  certain  forms  of 
business,  not  because  he  likes  it,  but  because 
he  sees  that  it  is  necessary.  When  he  travels 
abroad  he  recognizes  and  enjoys  the  help  which 
governments  more  paternal  in  character  render 
to  their  citizens;  but  long  habit  has  accus 
tomed  him  to  rely  on  himself  at  home. 

He  is  jealous  of  his  personal  independence 
and  he  is  self-reliant.  These  qualities  brought 
his  ancestors  to  the  New  World,  created  the 
political  conditions  under  which  he  lives,  and 
have  developed  the  country.  He  expects  to 
support  his  church,  to  contribute  to  the  char 
ities  of  his  neighborhood  or  town,  to  help 
endow  schools,  colleges  and  hospitals.  If  he 

282 


AMERICAN   AND    HIS    GOVERNMENT 

pays  taxes  to  support  a  State  University  he 
expects  that  university  to  work  with  and  for 
the  state.  He  gives  more  and  more  generously 
to  build  and  endow  art  museums  and  hos 
pitals,  to  create  parks,  to  secure  from  business 
uses  national  scenery.  The  largeness  of  mod 
ern  undertakings  and  their  interstate  rela 
tions  are  accustoming  him  to  the  appearance 
of  the  government  in  new  fields  and  exercising 
larger  powers ;  but  if  a  monument  is  to  be 
built,  a  college  endowed  in  some  neglected 
section,  a  reform  movement  set  on  foot,  his 
first  thought  is  to  call  together  a  few  influen 
tial  men  and  give  individual  initiative  the 
force  and  influence  of  public  not  governmen 
tal  organization.  The  first  impulse  comes 
from  the  individual,  and  individual  initiative 
has  been  perhaps  the  prime  element  in  the 
development  of  the  country.  Such  educa 
tional  institutions  as  Hampton  Institute, 
Tuskegee,  and  Berea  College,  doing  work  of 
the  highest  importance,  were  created  by  in 
dividuals. 

To  the  general  statement  of  the  reliance  of 
the  individual  on  his  own  exertions  without 

283 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

aid  from  the  government  there  has  been  one 
notable  and  profoundly  influential  exception. 
The  policy  of  protection  has  hastened  and 
developed  American  industries  and  has  added 
immensely  to  the  wealth  of  the  country. 
But,  aside  from  its  commercial  value,  it  has 
had  one  very  disastrous  effect :  it  has  accus 
tomed  a  very  large  class  of  business  interests 
to  look  to  the  government  for  aid  in  the  build 
ing  up  of  private  enterprises.  The  govern 
ment  has  become,  in  effect,  the  silent  partner 
in  many  manufacturing  industries,  and  great 
business  interests  have  become  so  involved 
with  political  action  that  a  system  of  trading 
grew  up  between  a  certain  class  of  politicians 
and  certain  protected  industries,  which  has 
been  the  source  of  widespread  political  cor 
ruption.  This  state  of  things  has  set  in 
motion  a  determined  and  successful  effort  to 
make  an  end  of  an  unnatural  alliance.  The 
tariff  of  the  future  will  be  out  of  politics.  Even 
when  they  have  sought  the  aid  of  the  govern 
ment,  some  Americans  have  regarded  the 
national  authority  as  their  servant  and  have 
used  it  to  advance  their  private  fortunes. 

284 


AMERICAN  AND    HIS    GOVERNMENT 

Emerson,  who  is  the  prophet  as  well  as  the 
poet  of  the  American  political  and  social  order, 
defined  America  in  one  significant  word : 
opportunity.  It  has  not  only  held  its  entrance 
doors  open  to  all  comers,  but  it  has  kept  the 
inner  doors  open,  so  that  a  man  might  pass 
from  room  to  room  as  fast  and  as  long  as  he 
had  the  strength  to  open  the  doors.  Educa 
tion,  fortune  and  station  have  been  and  are 
open  to  all ;  the  penniless  boy  has  become  the 
head  of  a  leading  university,  the  governor 
of  his  state  or  its  senator;  the  frontier  young 
man,  without  opportunity  of  formal  education 
but  with  the  passion  for  knowledge  and  im 
pelled  by  a  noble  ambition,  has  become 
President.  In  America  the  goals  are  many 
and  the  race  is  open  to  all ;  success  is  largely 
a  question  of  ability  and  endurance. 

There  are  no  fixed  and  permanent  social 
and  economic  classes  in  the  country  and  there 
is  a  settled  determination  that  there  never 
shall  be ;  that  the  field  shall  be  kept  open  and 
that  all  shall  strive  under  impartial  conditions, 
with  special  privileges  to  none.  The  doctrine 
of  political  equality  does  not  mean  social, 

285 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

intellectual  or  economic  equality :  it  means 
equality  of  opportunity  to  all  men  to  put 
forth  their  energy  and  to  win  and  keep  the 
rewards  of  their  ability,  character  and  in 
dustry. 

The  American  boy  grows  up  in  a  stimulat 
ing  atmosphere.  He  is  familiar  from  his 
earliest  youth  with  the  romances  of  heroic 
endeavor.  The  story  of  honorable  success  is 
told  in  a  thousand  forms,  but  its  elements  are 
few  and  obvious;  character,  self-reliance,  cour 
age,  industry.  During  the  last  thirty  years 
the  opportunities  of  fortune  making  have  been 
unprecedented  and  have  presented  unprece 
dented  temptations  to  unfair  and  tyrannical 
dealing,  and  many  men  have  fallen  victims  to 
the  desire  to  make  great  fortunes  over  night, 
so  to  speak ;  but  many  instances  of  prosperous 
dishonor  —  if  dishonor  can  ever  be  prosper 
ous — have  not  blurred  the  essential  soundness 
and  integrity  of  American  success. 

The  New  World  was  settled  by  men  who 
expected  to  better  their  conditions  and  that 
expectation  has  been  and  is  a  constant  force 
in  American  life.  The  boy  expects  to  be  a 

286 


AMERICAN  AND    HIS    GOVERNMENT 

man  of  influence  and  fortune ;  the  local  banker 
expects  to  become  a  financier ;  the  small  trader 
expects  to  become  a  great  merchant ;  the 
obscure  young  scholar  dreams  of  the  oppor 
tunities  of  a  chair  in  the  university;  the 
rising  lawyer,  with  an  instinct  for  public 
affairs,  anticipates  the  honor  of  political  sta 
tion  and  leadership.  Every  man  in  America 
is  looking  forward ;  the  country  is  always  plan 
ning  for  the  future.  That  future  is  not,  how 
ever,  a  vague  hope,  a  mere  expectation ;  it  is  an 
enormous  national  asset  because  it  stands  for 
a  volume  of  undeveloped  resources  which  are 
tangible  and,  in  large  measure,  calculable; 
the  development  of  which  is  a  matter  of  time 
and  capital.  This  sense  of  futurity  is  in 
evitable  in  a  country  which  is  still  largely 
undeveloped.  There  has  been  a  little  intox 
ication  in  the  air  and  it  has  sometimes  found 
its  way  into  the  popular  speech.  But  the 
"tall  talk"  which  Dickens  found  both  offen 
sive  and  amusing  is  heard  to-day  only  in  hotly 
contested  elections  or  in  the  mouths  of  the 
representatives  of  remote  rural  constituencies. 
The  average  American  is  amused  or  bored  by  it. 

287 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

An  Englishman  of  distinction  has  said  that 
two  qualities  pervade  American  society  to  a 
degree  of  which  Americans  themselves  are 
unaware  —  helpfulness  and  hope.  These  are 
frontier  qualities.  Settlers  in  a  new  country 
form  the  habit  of  standing  together,  and  they 
always  look  forward  to  safety,  comfort  and 
prosperity.  And  in  a  country  in  which  the 
frontier  has  only  recently  disappeared  and  in 
large  sections  of  which  the  earliest  generation 
of  settlers  is  still  represented,  the  habit  of 
helpfulness  and  the  spirit  of  hope  are  in  the 
air. 

Along  the  Atlantic  seaboard  the  oldest  com 
munities  have  their  social  traditions,  their 
well-defined  social  standards;  but  in  these 
communities  new  groups  of  people  are  contin 
ually  coming  to  the  front,  bringing  with  them 
a  careless  indifference  to  the  imaginary  social 
lines  drawn  by  the  descendants  of  the  older 
families ;  the  Central  West,  into  whose  hands 
the  political  control  of  the  country  has  passed, 
and  the  Far  West,  steadily  gaining  weight  in 
the  direction  of  national  affairs,  are  radically 
democratic.  This  does  not  mean  that  they 

288 


AMERICAN   AND    HIS    GOVERNMENT 

refuse  to  recognize  superiority  of  character  or 
training,  or  that  they  are  envious  of  the 
wealth  of  others ;  it  means  that  they  are  bent 
on  the  preservation  of  a  social  order  in  which 
men  shall  be  respected,  not  for  what  they 
inherit  but  for  what  they  achieve ;  and  that 
the  paths  to  success  shall  be  kept  open. 
This  determination  to  keep  the  doors  open  to 
industry  and  ability  is  one  of  the  prime  factors 
in  the  struggle  now  going  on  in  America  to 
make  an  end  of  special  privileges  and  to  keep 
a  free  field  for  individual  effort.  The  fight 
is  not  against  wealth,  but  against  giving 
opportunities  for  acquiring  wealth  to  a  few 
instead  of  offering,  as  near  as  possible,  the 
same  opportunities  to  all. 

;<The  treasury  of  America,"  President  Wil 
son  has  recently  said,  "lies  in  those  ambitions, 
those  energies,  that  cannot  be  restricted  to  a 
special  favored  class.  It  depends  upon  the 
inventions  of  unknown  men,  upon  the  origina 
tions  of  unknown  men,  upon  the  ambitions  of 
unknown  men.  Every  country  is  renewed 
out  of  the  ranks  of  the  unknown,  not  out  of 
the  ranks  of  those  already  famous  and  power- 
u  289 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

ful  and  in  control."  To  keep  the  door  of 
opportunity  so  easily  moved  that  a  touch  of 
strength,  of  energy,  of  ability  will  set  it  wide 
is  the  settled  determination  of  the  Americans 
of  to-day. 

The  average  American  resents  the  exploita 
tion  of  wealth  and  the  endeavor  to  create  a 
social  order  on  a  property  basis.  He  respects 
an  aristocracy  based  on  blood,  though  he 
refuses  to  regard  it  as  constituting  a  basis 
for  political  privilege;  but  he  resents  the 
effort  to  establish  a  plutocracy.  In  a  western 
community,  where  the  democratic  spirit  is 
most  pronounced,  the  man  who  has  made  a 
fortune  fairly  avoids  vulgar  display  and  is 
generous  in  his  support  of  community  inter 
ests,  —  is  held  in  high  respect  as  a  citizen 
who  is  also  a  good  neighbor.  For  neighborli- 
ness,  which  is  helpfulness  become  habitual  and 
practical,  is  almost  a  fetish  in  America.  It 
has  come  down  from  the  days  when  the  little 
group  of  families  on  the  frontier  made  a  kind 
of  common  capital  of  their  resources;  fought 
together  for  the  safety  of  their  homes ;  worked 
together  when  their  crops  were  threatened  by 

290 


AMERICAN   AND    HIS    GOVERNMENT 

sudden  dangers;  and  in  sickness  or  sorrow 
became  one  family.  The  average  American 
is  proud  of  the  success  of  his  neighbor;  it 
reflects  a  certain  credit  on  himself  and  on  the 
community ;  but  when  the  successful  man 
remains  in  the  neighborhood  but  ceases  to 
be  a  neighbor,  he  becomes  not  envious  of  his 
wealth  but  offended  by  his  selfish  use  of  it. 
Mr.  Kipling  has  said  that  the  French  talk 
a  great  deal  about  liberty,  equality  and  frater 
nity,  but  care  only  for  equality;  that  the 
English  hate  equality  and  fraternity,  but 
care  greatly  for  liberty;  that  Americans  are 
indifferent  to  liberty  and  equality,  but  insist 
on  fraternity.  And  it  is  true  that  good-fel 
lowship  counts  immensely  in  public  regard  in 
America.  To  be  a  "good-fellow,"  to  have 
cordial  manners,  to  keep  a  pleasant  word 
ready,  to  be  easy  of  access  and  always  at  hand 
with  a  cheerful  temper  and  a  willingness  to 
help,  is  to  have  a  wide  latitude  in  the  matter 
of  personal  conduct.  The  political  "boss" 
understands  this  weakness  in  his  countrymen 
and  has  organized  "good-fellowship"  into  a 
system  which  the  reformers  find  it  hard  to 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

overturn.  He  is  so  ready  to  serve  his  con 
stituents  that  he  seems  to  them  an  efficient 
servant  of  the  community ;  when,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  his  cordiality  and  helpfulness  are 
simply  political  assets.  He  finds  work  for  the 
unemployed,  makes  generous  gifts  of  coal 
and  flour  when  work  and  wages  fail,  supplies 
doctors  and  medicines  in  sickness,  arranges 
excursions  and  dances  for  his  supporters 
among  the  working  classes,  and  stands  before 
them  as  a  friend  in  need  on  a  great  scale. 

Many  a  corruptionist  in  American  politics 
has  held  his  place  because  he  was  known  to  be 
a  devoted  husband  and  father,  a  generous 
giver  to  churches  and  charities,  and  a  man  with 
a  cordial  grasp  of  the  hand  and  a  pleasant 
smile  for  all  comers. 

But  this  regard  for  the  man  of  genial  man 
ners  and  readiness  to  help  is  the  excess  of  one 
of  the  finest  American  qualities,  neighborliness. 
In  this  respect  America  is  a  great  village  from 
the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  and  what  happens 
in  Portland,  Maine,  greatly  interests  the 
people  of  Portland,  Oregon.  If  there  is  an 
outbreak  of  yellow  fever  in  some  section  of  the 


AMERICAN   AND    HIS    GOVERNMENT 

South,  doctors  and  nurses  are  rushed  to  the 
point,  by  special  train  if  necessary;  if  great 
floods  bring  widespread  suffering  in  the  Mis 
sissippi  Valley,  the  whole  nation  opens  its 
pocketbook;  if  Charleston  is  damaged  by  an 
earthquake,  subscriptions  for  the  benefit  of 
the  suffering  are  instantly  forwarded;  if  a 
great  fire  sweeps  a  city,  other  cities  stand  ready 
to  help  it  rebuild ;  when  San  Francisco  was 
overtaken  by  a  great  calamity  a  few  years 
ago,  the  nation  rose  as  one  man  to  help  it. 
Cities,  villages,  boards  of  trade,  churches, 
opened  subscription  lists,  and  $9,500,000  was 
sent  at  once,  and  more  would  have  gone  if  the 
local  committee  of  relief  had  not  announced 
that  no  more  money  could  be  used  to  advan 
tage.  The  nation  thought  of  little  else  for 
weeks,  and  every  kind  of  aid,  public  and  pri 
vate,  was  at  the  service  of  the  stricken  city. 
The  whole  country  was  neighbor  to  it. 

The  instinct  that  makes  Americans  jealous 
of  any  loss  of  this  spirit  of  neighborliness  is 
sound ;  for  it  is  not  only  a  deep  spring  of 
democratic  feeling  but  a  moderating  and 
regulating  influence  in  a  country  in  which 

293 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

individual  initiative  plays  so  great  a  part. 
It  does  not  check  individual  energy  but  sub 
dues  it  to  common  uses ;  redeems  it  from  hard 
selfishness ;  and  sweetens  success  by  insisting 
that  it  shall  be  shared  with  the  community. 

There  are  men  of  immense  wealth  in 
America  whose  names  have  become  symbols 
of  business  oppression,  of  unfair  methods 
in  crushing  competitors,  of  lessening  oppor 
tunities  for  young  men  with  no  other  capital 
than  character,  energy  and  ability.  They  are 
disliked  not  because  they  are  rich  men  —  that 
is,  in  itself,  a  matter  of  indifference  —  but 
because  they  have  not  been  good  neighbors. 
To  keep  this  spirit  of  generous  sharing  of 
opportunity,  of  mutual  helpfulness,  Ameri 
cans  are  just  now  revising  their  laws,  extending 
the  authority  of  the  National  government  and 
pledging  themselves  anew,  in  many  practical 
ways,  that  the  government  of  the  people,  by 
the  people,  for  the  people  shall  not  perish 
from  the  face  of  the  earth. 


294 


XI 

COUNTRY  AND  PEOPLE 

MUCH  confusion  of  thought  has  been  caused 
by  the  habit  of  speaking  of  peoples  as  if 
they  were  all  cast  in  the  same  mold.  We 
are  so  accustomed  to  the  use  of  the  phrase 
"the  Japanese,"  "the  English,"  "the  Ameri 
cans"  that  we  have  come  to  think  of  these 
words  as  definite  and  exact  characterizations. 
Nothing  could  be  more  misleading;  these 
peoples  have  certain  physical  characteristics 
which  are  the  results  of  race  and  climate ;  they 
have  certain  racial  forms  of  thought  and 
speech ;  but  they  present  differences  of 
character  and  culture  as  marked  as  those  which 
exist  between  alien  races.  It  has  taken  Europe 
a  long  time  to  learn  that  there  are  Americans 
and  Americans  ;  and  that  the  London  cockney 
is  not  further  removed  in  intelligence  from 
the  Englishman  of  university  training  than  is 
the  ignorant  American  from  the  man  who, 

295 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

like  Lowell,  has  the  knowledge  of  the  Old  and 
the  wit  of  the  New  World.  In  France  the 
men  of  Normandy  and  of  Brittany  are  French 
men,  but  in  temperament  and  habit  of  thought 
they  are  farther  apart  than  some  Frenchmen 
and  Italians. 

America,  like  Japan,  has  several  climates. 
In  the  Far  North  deep  snow  lies  on  the  ground 
almost  half  the  year ;  in  the  woods  of  Maine 
and  Michigan  the  winter  has  an  arctic  severity. 
In  the  Far  South  the  roses  bloom  in  every 
month,  and  sea  bathing  is  a  recreation  in 
January.  On  the  New  England  coast  when 
fogs  and  east  winds  are  making  men  ask 
whether  life  is  worth  living,  the  everglades 
of  Florida  are  brilliant  with  tropical  flowers, 
and  the  sky  of  Southern  California  is  cloudless. 

And  in  these  different  environments  dif 
ferent  types  of  men  have  been  bred.  The 
New  England  type  and  the  Southern  type 
have  been  specially  definite  in  their  diver 
sities  and  exceptionally  influential  in  shaping 
the  affairs  of  the  country.  New  England 
was  settled  by  men  and  women  of  resolute 
will,  strong  convictions,  self-denying  frugality 

296 


COUNTRY  AND  PEOPLE 

and  industry,  with  a  great  regard  for  education. 
The  climate  was  rigorous  and  the  soil  exacting 
full  payment  in  toil  for  every  ounce  of  prod 
uct.  Family  life  was  singularly  pure  and 
unworldly ;  integrity,  self-reliance  and  the 
habit  of  work  were  fundamental  in  the  edu 
cation  of  children.  Independence  of  judg 
ment  was  carried  to  an  extreme,  and  no 
section  of  the  country  has  bred  so  many  re 
formers  and  rebels  against  conventions,  ready 
to  stand  alone  if  need  be  for  a  principle. 
In  almost  every  New  England  village  there 
will  still  be  found  a  recluse,  who  lives  by  him 
self  because  he  cannot  make  the  compromise 
with  absolute  freedom  which  living  with 
others  would  involve.  The  New  Englander 
has  been  the  founder  of  colleges,  the  organizer 
of  churches,  the  leader  of  ethical  movements. 
In  the  South,  on  the  other  hand,  the  climate 
is  milder,  the  soil  more  responsive.  There 
is  far  more  activity  in  the  saddle  and  with  the 
gun,  and  social  life  has  filled  a  much  larger 
place  in  the  sum  total  of  living.  There 
has  been  less  seriousness  of  spirit,  though  no 
less  power  of  sacrifice.  Manners  have  been 

297 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

more  gracious,  though  they  have  expressed 
no  greater  readiness  to  help  than  the  more 
restrained  New  Englander  has  felt.  A  more 
relaxed  temper  has  made  life  less  strenuous 
than  in  New  England ;  and  while  religious 
faith  has  been  more  conservative  its  pressure 
on  social  habits  has  been  more  lightly  borne. 

The  people  of  the  West  bear  the  impress 
of  both  sections,  but  have  developed  types  of 
their  own ;  they  have  the  New  England  faith 
in  education,  but  they  have  shaped  their 
universities  with  a  free  hand  to  meet  their 
own  conditions ;  they  stand  together  in  all 
times  of  need  and  in  all  enterprises  for  the 
common  benefit  with  uncalculating  loyalty 
and  generosity ;  they  have  the  strong  social 
instinct  of  the  South,  but  they  are  far  more 
democratic  in  spirit  and  habit.  The  some 
what  rigid  outlines  of  the  New  England  type 
are  blurred  in  the  West,  while  the  easy-going 
Southern  habit  is  reenforced  by  fresh  energy 
and  the  passion  for  success.  Manners  are 
unconventionally  cordial. 

The  landscape  of  the  country  is  on  a  vast 
scale  and  presents  certain  broad  divisions 

298 


COUNTRY  AND  PEOPLE 

which  have  played  their  part  in  the  develop 
ment  of  the  nation.  The  Atlantic  seaboard 
is  a  long  stretch  of  comparatively  level  and 
arable  country  from  Maine  in  the  North  to 
Florida  at  the  South.  In  this  belt  are  the 
older  cities  and  communities ;  the  stubborn 
but  well-worked  farms  of  New  England; 
the  broad  fertility  of  New  York  and  Pennsyl 
vania  ;  the  garden-like  fruit  farms  of  Dela 
ware  and  Maryland  ;  the  naturally  productive 
soil  of  Virginia,  and  the  rice  and  cotton  fields 
of  South  Carolina.  At  the  back  of  this  long 
stretch  of  comparatively  level  strip  of  country 
rises  a  range  of  mountains  running  from  North 
to  South,  and,  in  the  earlier  days,  forming  a 
formidable  barrier  to  the  growth  of  the  colonies 
westward.  From  the  western  slope  of  these 
mountains  there  stretches  a  vast  tract  of 
country  which  the  Mississippi  and  its  tribu 
taries  first  opened  to  the  world ;  an  empire 
within  the  continent;  a  thousand  miles  and 
more  of  fertile  soil  which  was  once  largely 
prairie  country  and  is  now  a  vast  community 
of  farms  with  large  and  intensely  active  cities 
as  distributing  centers.  Where  the  prairies 

299 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

—  level,  fertile  and,  in  the  spring,  radiant  with 
flowers  —  end  the  plains  begun,  at  a  much 
higher  altitude  and  with  a  colder  and  dryer 
climate.  They  were  formerly  ranges  over 
which  wild  cattle  roamed ;  later  domesti 
cated  cattle  were  driven  hither  and  thither 
over  a  great  stretch  of  unoccupied  country 
which  is  now  made  fertile  by  irrigation  and 
divided  into  great  cattle  farms.  This  tract 
of  country  still  in  the  early  stages  of  develop 
ment  ends  at  the  foothills  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  which  traverse  the  continent  from 
North  to  South,  and  slope  westward  to  the 
Pacific. 

An  American  artist  of  distinction  has  said 
of  the  noble  figure  of  Buddha  at  Kamakura : 
"It  is  not  a  little  thing  made  big,  like  our 
modern  colossal  statues;  it  has  always  been 
big,  and  would  be  so  if  reduced  to  life  size." 
The  figure,  in  other  words,  is  not  simply 
large;  it  is  great.  It  was  conceived  on  a 
great  scale  and  was  executed  with  a  commen 
surate  boldness  and  power.  Size  of  itself 
is  not  significant ;  it  may  be  mere  extension  of 
surface,  a  vast  landscape  without  composition. 

300 


COUNTRY  AND  PEOPLE 

There  is  a  radical  difference  between  size 
and  scale.  America  is  not  simply  a  large 
country;  it  is,  speaking  geographically,  a  great 
country,  a  country  fashioned  on  a  great  scale. 
If  the  continent  is  studied  in  elevation,  it  will 
show  diversities  of  structure  —  composition, 
as  the  painters  would  call  it — as  clearly  as 
Japan,  Italy  or  England.  It  is  not,  as  some 
people  seem  to  imagine,  a  vast  monotony  of 
prairie  and  plain ;  it  is  a  continent  of  mani 
fold  diversities  of  landscape. 

The  scale  on  which  the  country  is  molded 
is  an  element  which  has  deeply  impressed 
the  imagination  of  the  people  from  the  be 
ginning  and  has  deeply  affected  their  history. 
Bryant,  the  earliest  American  poet  of  im 
portance,  gave  his  verse  an  elemental  quality 
and  conveyed  a  sense  of  the  mystery  which 
inheres  in  vastness.  It  may  be  that  the 
tendency  to  moralization,  which  Dr.  Nitobe 
has  noted  in  the  closing  lines  of  the  fine 
verses  "To  a  Waterfowl,"  and  which  he  rightly 
says  no  Japanese  poet  would  have  felt  it 
necessary  to  add,  was  a  refuge  from  the 
almost  overwhelming  sense  of  vastness  on 

301 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

the  American  continent.  In  the  presence  of 
a  landscape  of  such  extent  and  majesty 
men  of  imagination  are  driven  to  offset  the 
mass  or  weight  of  earth  with  assertions  of 
the  supremacy  of  the  spirit.  And  it  is  a 
significant  fact  about  American  literature 
that  its  notes  have  been  idealistic  and  al 
truistic;  it  has  lacked  so  far  the  solidity  and 
physical  basis,  so  to  speak,  of  the  older 
literatures,  but  it  has  had  notable  purity  of 
tone  and  elevation  of  thought.  On  the  bleak 
New  England  coasts  in  the  days  of  the  first 
migration,  on  the  level  sweep  of  prairie  country 
in  the  time  of  the  second  migration,  on  the 
edges  of  the  Grand  Canyon  or  in  the  lonely 
gorges  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  or  of  the 
Sierra  Nevadas  to-day,  men  take  refuge 
from  the  sense  of  insignificance  in  the  asser 
tion  of  their  spiritual  superiority. 

The  scale  on  which  the  continent  is  molded 
has  laid  on  Americans  a  task  of  almost  crushing 
magnitude.  The  work  of  exploration  and 
settlement,  begun  almost  three  centuries 
ago,  is  still  incomplete.  The  transcontinental 
railways  were  constructed  by  men  many  of 

302 


COUNTRY  AND  PEOPLE 

whom  are  still  living,  and  the  disappearance 
of  the  frontier  is  a  matter  of  the  last  ten  years  ; 
frontier  conditions  still  continue  in  large 
sections  of  the  country,  and  vast  tracts  of 
land  are  still  to  be  settled  and  developed. 
The  work  of  settlement  has  involved  con 
tinuous  toil  and  almost  continuous  danger; 
and  the  foundations  of  every  new  community 
have  been  laid  in  self-denial,  self-sacrifice, 
heroic  work  and  indomitable  hope.  Ameri 
cans  have  been  criticized  for  the  slowness 
with  which  their  art  has  developed ;  but  their 
critics  forget  the  preoccupation  of  a  task  of 
colossal  magnitude,  the  absorption  of  energy 
and  strength  involved  in  reclaiming  a  con 
tinent  and  converting  it  into  three  thousand 
miles  of  practically  continuous  farms;  with 
the  building  of  roads,  making  of  tools  and 
creation  of  governmental,  educational  and 
social  institutions,  which  have  been  involved 
in  this  development. 

Emerson  has  said  in  effect  that  the  most 
valuable  product  of  a  farm  is  not  crops  but 
character,  and  that  men  take  out  of  the  earth 
much  more  than  they  put  into  it.  The  con- 

303 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

version  of  a  continent  into  a  home  has  largely 
shaped  American  character  and  must  be 
taken  into  account  in  any  study  of  their  life. 
It  has  exalted  work  into  something  like  a 
religion;  it  has  discredited  the  idler;  it  has 
awakened  the  active  qualities  and  stimulated 
self-reliance,  self-respect  and  the  passion  for 
personal  independence.  In  every  country 
the  owners  of  land  have  great  influence; 
in  America  they  form  a  very  large  propor 
tion  of  the  population,  and  the  able  men  who 
are  the  managers  of  the  business  of  the 
country  from  offices  and  banks  in  the  cities 
are  largely  drawn  from  those  who  were  born 
on  farms.  The  productivity  of  the  American 
farms  for  1912  was  nine  billion  five  hundred 
million  dollars,  an  increase  of  about  one 
hundred  and  forty  per  cent  during  the 
last  fifteen  years.  And  now  that  scientific 
methods  of  farming  are  being  introduced, 
and  the  betterment  of  agriculture  has  become 
part  of  the  business  of  the  government,  under 
the  direction  of  experts,  it  is  impossible  to 
predict  the  wealth-producing  capacity  of 
American  farms  in  the  near  future.  The  pro- 

304 


COUNTRY  AND  PEOPLE 

duction  of  coal,  iron,  oil,  copper,  silver  has 
shown  a  commensurate  increase.  Americans 
are  often  accused  of  boasting  because  they 
quote  such  stupendous  figures  in  describing 
the  resources  of  the  country;  but  it  is  im 
possible  to  ignore  these  figures,  because  they 
are  of  great  significance  in  the  life  of  the 
country.  They  mean  not  only  wealth  but 
energy,  ability,  opportunity,  a  heavy  tax  on 
time  and  thought  and  strength. 

To  the  charge  that  he  is  vulgarly  rich  the 
American  might  plead  his  inability  to  escape 
wealth  because  he  has  inherited  an  estate 
which  is  so  enormously  productive;  he  has 
shown  only  the  sagacity  which  other  active 
races  would  have  shown  under  the  same  con 
ditions.  Those  conditions  have  laid  a  task  on 
his  shoulders  which  has  absorbed  his  energy 
and  strength  for  a  century  and  has  drawn  from 
the  direct  service  of  the  State  many  men  of 
ability  who,  in  other  countries,  would  have 
been  political  leaders.  In  America  public  life, 
as  has  been  pointed  out,  is  not  synonymous 
with  politics ;  it  is  shared  by  all  men  and 
women  who  contribute  largely  to  the  general 

305 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

welfare  :  heads  of  colleges,  philanthropists, 
men  of  affairs,  builders  of  railroads,  organiz 
ers  of  industry.  There  are  in  America  men 
of  affairs  who  have  shown  the  daring  that 
in  the  sixteenth  century  would  have  made 
them  great  explorers  and  adventurers,  the 
imagination  that  would  have  made  them 
poets,  the  breadth  of  view  and  the  sense  of 
things  to  come  that  in  other  countries  would 
have  made  them  statesmen. 

It  sometimes  happens  that  the  heir  to 
a  vast  property  is  compelled  to  devote 
the  earlier  years  of  his  possession  to 
the  organization  and  development  of  his 
estate;  other  interests  may  call  him  loudly 
and  his  heart  may  respond  to  their  call,  but 
for  the  moment  his  work  confronts  him  with 
such  urgency  of  demand  that  to  leave  it 
undone  would  be  to  turn  his  back  on  that 
which  Carlyle  declared  has  the  supreme 
claim  on  a  man  —  the  duty  that  lies  next 
him. 

The  charge  of  materialism,  which  has  be 
come  the  stock  in  trade  of  many  critics  of 
American  society,  is  largely  made,  as  is  most 

306 


COUNTRY  AND  PEOPLE 

criticism  of  nations  by  foreign  observers, 
from  a  very  superficial  knowledge  of  condi 
tions.  It  may  not  be  a  matter  of  credit  to 
America  that  it  has  become  a  very  rich 
country,  and  it  is  certainly  true  that  some 
Americans  have  obtruded  that  fact  on  the 
attention  of  the  world  too  insistently;  but  it 
is  a  matter  of  simple  justice  to  remember  that 
if  America  had  failed  to  develop  the  resources 
of  the  continent,  the  same  critics  would  have 
put  her  among  those  races  which  either  fall 
a  prey  to  more  energetic  peoples  or  furnish 
standard  illustrations  of  national  inefficiency. 
The  sense  of  still  greater  possibilities  of 
development  pervades  the  air  of  America  and 
finds  expression  in  the  speech,  the  imagina 
tion,  the  temperament  of  the  people.  An 
American  artist,  on  the  wall  of  a  library  build 
ing,  has  striven  to  represent  the  spirit  of  the 
people  by  a  procession  of  men,  women  and 
children.  They  are  all  marching  together, 
with  eager  expectation  on  their  upturned 
faces,  and  the  morning  light  shines  on  them. 
It  was  a  happy  inspiration  to  paint  hope,  not 
as  an  allegorical  figure,  but  as  an  impulse 

307 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

which  is  like  martial  music  to  a  moving 
host.  In  America  the  future  is  not  an 
indefinite  apprehension ;  it  is  an  ardent  ex 
pectation:  a  promise  not  only  of  ample  pros 
perity  but  of  a  fuller,  more  interesting,  more 
satisfying  life. 

And  so  the  thought  of  the  American  to-day 
centers  more  and  more  on  the  well-being  of 
the  coming  generation;  on  the  protection  of 
women  and  children  from  oppressive  working 
hours  and  unwholesome  industrial  condi 
tions  ;  on  securing  cleanliness,  light  and  air 
in  the  homes  of  the  poor;  educational  op 
portunities  ample  enough  for  those  who  want 
the  most  thorough  technical  training  and  for 
those  who  must  begin  at  an  early  age  to 
care  for  themselves;  the  husbanding  of  the 
resources  of  the  country  for  the  benefit  of 
future  generations.  Americans  have  been 
prodigal  givers  of  land,  forests,  mines,  water 
power ;  they  have  surrendered  to  private  enter 
prises  sources  of  great  public  revenue.  They 
have  now  reversed  this  spendthrift  policy ; 
henceforth,  these  resources  will  be  developed 
and  managed  by  private  hands  on  generous 

308 


COUNTRY  AND  PEOPLE 

terms ;  but  a  proper  return  will  be  required  in 
order  that  the  national  property  may  bear 
its  share  of  the  national  expenses. 

The  pressure  of  work  which  must  be  done  at 
once  necessarily  involved  much  provisional 
building  of  houses  and  railroads  in  the  country, 
and  has  compelled  the  almost  universal  re 
building  which  is  going  on  in  all  sections.  The 
same  pressure  of  work  and  the  extent  of  the 
territory  to  be  covered  have  made  careless 
ness,  even  slovenliness,  far  too  prevalent  in 
America,  in  most  parts  of  which  the  neatness 
which  characterizes  England  and  Belgium, 
for  instance,  is  conspicuously  lacking.  Here 
again  the  element  of  scale  and  the  shortness 
of  time  in  which  the  work  has  been  done  must 
be  taken  into  account. 

The  impress  of  scale  is  seen  not  only  in 
American  aims  and  character  but  in  its  art  and 
literature.  In  American  books  there  is  a  new 
kind  of  passion  for  Nature ;  not  the  exquisite 
Greek  sense  of  detail  which  makes  Theocritus 
both  the  poet  and  the  natural  historian  of 
Sicily ;  not  Wordsworth's  mystical  feeling  of 
the  presence  of  the  soul  suffusing  the  world 

309 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

with  intimations  of  immortality ;  not  the  sensi 
tive  response  of  Tennyson  to  the  elusive  and 
fleeting  no  less  than  to  the  obvious  aspect  of  a 
world  grown  familiar  with  use  and  intimate 
through  toil  and  sorrow;  but  a  sense  of 
the  vastness,  sublimity  and  loneliness  of 
Nature;  the  detachment  of  a  landscape  not 
yet  humanized  by  cultivation  and  by  paths 
across  the  fields.  Fuji,  the  Incomparable, 
rises  uncompanioned  into  the  lonely  sky, 
a  vast  altar  set  afar  in  unbroken  silence ;  the 
highest  peaks  in  America  rise  out  of  great 
ranges  of  hills,  in  a  landscape  so  vast  that 
they  can  be  approached  only  with  peril  and 
hardship.  If  the  "  Lines  on  Tintern  Abbey  "  are 
compared  with  Lanier's  "Marshes  of  Glynn," 
or  the  companionable  notebook  of  White  of 
Selbourne  with  Thoreau's  "Maine  Woods,"  or 
Jefferies'  "Wild  Life  in  a  Southern  County" 
with  Mr.  Burroughs'  records  of  Nature  in 
America,  the  difference  in  scale  between  a 
small  and  highly  cultivated  country  like 
England  and  a  vast  and  still  largely  unculti 
vated  country  like  the  United  States  will 
stand  out  with  striking  distinctness. 

310 


COUNTRY  AND  PEOPLE 

Nor  does  the  influence  of  the  scale  of  re 
sources  end  with  a  report  of  its  effect  on 
temperament  and  achievement;  it  must  be 
reckoned  with  in  any  attempt  to  understand 
the  financial  development  of  the  last  forty 
years.  These  four  decades  of  growth  and 
prosperity  have  brought  with  them  tempta 
tions  to  the  abuse  of  success  to  which  the  men 
of  no  other  race  have  been  subjected.  The 
population  has  grown  from  thirty-eight  and  a 
half  millions  in  1870  to  ninety-three  or  four 
millions  in  1912.  Three  years  ago  the  wealth 
of  the  country  was  estimated  at  $142,000,000,- 
000.  These  figures  are  not  quoted  because 
they  afford  any  standard  of  national  ability 
or  any  measure  of  national  greatness ;  but 
simply  because  they  suggest  the  strain  to 
which  the  government  of  the  United  States 
and  the  American  character  have  been  sub 
jected.  They  do  not  justify  boasting,  and 
to-day  there  is  very  little  inclination  in 
America  to  print  them  in  large  letters  on  the 
title  page  of  current  history;  nor,  on  the 
other  hand,  are  they  to  be  apologized  for.  A 
nation,  like  an  individual,  is  not  called  upon 

311 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

to  explain  events  or  experiences  which  have 
been  beyond  its  control.  It  is  true,  Americans 
have  not  neglected  the  business  which  has 
fallen  into  their  hands,  but  it  is  also  true  that 
Nature,  the  silent  partner  in  the  American 
enterprise,  has  furnished  the  capital  and  the 
material  from  which  the  tools  have  been  made. 
In  no  other  country,  in  so  short  a  time,  has 
such  an  immense  acreage  of  fertility  been 
opened  and  such  an  army  of  workers  responded 
to  the  call  of  opportunity. 

The  result  has  been  a  stimulation  of  business 
activity  which  has  intoxicated  many  men  of 
naturally  sober  temper.  When  a  great  crop 
is  to  be  gathered  in  and  the  weather  is  uncer 
tain,  men  work,  not  only  overtime  but  all  the 
time.  In  the  United  States  a  flood  tide  of 
prosperity  found  the  old  channels  of  law  and 
method  inadequate,  and  men  have  been  swept 
along  without  any  clear  realization  of  the 
speed  with  which  they  were  moving.  The 
necessity  of  handling  efficiently  the  details 
of  enormous  business  operations  and  of  using 
vast  sums  of  money  has  brought  into  existence 
combinations  of  a  magnitude  undreamed  of  in 

312 


COUNTRY  AND  PEOPLE 

the  earlier  history  of  the  country  and  the 
radical  effects  of  which  in  restricting  competi 
tion  and  diminishing  individual  opportunity 
were  foreseen  neither  by  lawmakers  nor  by 
financiers ;  and  the  country  has  slowly 
awakened  to  the  fact  that  it  must  devise  some 
working  basis  for  vast  wealth  in  a  few  hands 
in  a  democratic  society. 

In  this  rushing  tide  of  activity  some  men 
have  been  swept  from  their  moral  moorings, 
and  the  speculative  and  gambling  spirit, 
which  is  always  stimulated  by  universal 
prosperity  and  from  which  all  countries  liave 
suffered,  has  tempted  some  men  to  unscrupu 
lous  use  of  wealth  and  to  downright  dis 
honesty;  but  the  fact  that  the  credit  system 
is  the  basis  of  enormous  transactions  and  that, 
while  it  is  sometimes  extended  beyond  the 
limits  of  safety,  it  is  so  rarely  abused  that  the 
confidence  of  the  country  in  the  fundamental 
integrity  of  the  business  community  is  never 
seriously  disturbed,  and  that  the  percentage  of 
loss  in  handling  enormous  investments  and 
trust  funds  is  so  small  as  to  be  almost  negligible, 
furnish  the  best  possible  evidence  of  the  sound- 

313 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

ness  of  American  business  men.  The  finances 
of  the  government  from  the  beginning  have 
been  managed  with  conspicuous  integrity  and 
the  losses  through  the  dishonesty  of  govern 
ment  officials  have  been  so  small  that  they 
may  be  ignored. 

Whoever  reads  the  report  of  corporate  op 
pression  in  the  United  States  during  the  last 
four  decades  and  does  not  take  into  account 
the  swift  and  unparalleled  increase  in  wealth, 
not  only  does  a  great  injustice  to  the  country, 
but  fails  to  understand  the  situation  as  com 
pletely  as  Gladstone  and  Carlyle  failed  to 
understand  the  War  between  the  States 
fifty  years  ago. 

This  prosperity  has  not  gone  wholly  into 
luxury,  though  it  has  increased  the  cost  of 
living  in  America  and  has  led  to  great  elabora 
tion  of  what  may  be  called  the  machinery  of 
living,  to  extravagance  and  to  display;  it 
has  endowed  education  and  scientific  investi 
gation  on  a  scale  unprecedented  in  the 
history  of  education.  To  some  of  these 
gifts  the  American  public,  always  quick  to  see 
the  humorous  aspects  of  current  events,  has 

314 


COUNTRY  AND  PEOPLE 

taken  a  somewhat  cynical  attitude  and  has 
plainly  hinted  that  some  gifts  to  colleges  and 
universities  have  been  attempts  at  restitution, 
and  that  the  multimillionaire  of  to-day  who 
endows  a  university  is  the  modern  suc 
cessor  of  the  medieval  baron  who,  after 
pillaging  a  city  and  putting  its  innocent 
inhabitants  to  the  sword,  made  his  peace 
with  Heaven  by  building  a  church.  There  is 
as  much  human  nature  in  America  as  there 
is  in  England,  Germany  or  Japan,  and  there 
is  the  same  partial  application  of  ideals  to 
action  as  in  these  older  countries ;  but  the 
most  obvious  interest  of  the  American,  accord 
ing  to  the  most  capable  observers,  is  his  inter 
est  in  education.  It  is  one  of  the  expressions 
of  his  faith  in  the  future  which  is  shared  by 
men  of  all  stations  in  life.  The  gifts  of  private 
persons  are  on  a  great  scale,  the  appropriations 
of  states  and  cities  are  on  the  same  scale ;  the 
citizen  expects  to  give  his  children  every 
educational  advantage  within  his  means ; 
and  in  America,  as  in  Japan,  no  sacrifice  is 
too  great  to  send  the  boy  to  college  and  the 
university.  The  newly  arrived  immigrant  in 

315 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

America  does  not  rest  until  his  children  are  in 
the  schools.  Many  foreigners  think  the  magic 
phrase  in  America  is  "getting  on" ;  but  they 
are  mistaken;  that  phrase  is  a  compact  de 
scription  of  the  prosperity  which  is,  in  the 
minds  of  men  and  women  who  have  children 
to  guide,  a  basis  for  "  getting  up."  It  is  a  kind 
of  national  tradition,  even  among  men  who 
have  made  great  fortunes  with  little  aid  from 
education,  that  children  must  have  larger  op 
portunities  than  their  parents  and  that  in 
point  of  opportunity  each  generation  must 
stand  on  the  shoulders  of  the  generation  which 
precedes  it. 

For  among  Americans  education  is  not  only 
a  discipline,  a  training;  it  is  also  a  symbol. 
It  stands  for  the  larger  freedom  which  polit 
ical  liberty  foreshadows ;  it  means  living  an 
ampler  life  in  a  larger  world.  It  is  one  form 
of  that  practical  idealism,  that  passion  for 
human  betterment,  which  sent  a  host  of 
men  and  women  to  the  New  World  for  con 
science'  sake;  men  and  women  who  opened 
schools  and  founded  colleges  before  they  were 
safely  housed  in  the  wilderness,  and  have 

316 


COUNTRY  AND  PEOPLE 

continued  to  build  schools  and  colleges  as 
fast  as  they  advanced  the  frontier  toward  the 
Pacific. 

They  have  also  built  churches,  for  religion 
has  been  one  of  the  major  motives  in  American 
civilization;  a  symbol  of  idealism  and  a  rule 
of  life;  and  the  church  has  been  a  center  of 
social  and  altruistic  activity.  In  every  village 
there  is  a  substantial  church  building;  often 
more  than  are  justified  by  the  population; 
and  there  is  an  academy  or  high  school. 
Puritanism  in  the  New  England  colonies  was 
not  only  a  form  of  faith  but  a  political  order 
as  well;  membership  in  the  church  was  a 
qualification  for  voting.  The  contemporaries 
of  Milton  and  Cromwell  held  their  faith 
with  an  intensity  of  conviction  which  tolerated 
no  differences  of  opinion.  But  before  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution  the  religious 
tests  had  been  abolished  and  freedom  of 
worship  recognized  as  a  fundamental  right  of 
every  citizen.  There  is  no  principle  which 
Americans  hold  more  tenaciously  than  this, 
nor  is  there  one  which  they  guard  with  more 
vigilance.  Every  attempt  to  use  public  funds 

817 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

for  sectarian  purposes  or  to  secure  govern 
ment  aid  for  such  purpose  is  met  by  a  storm  of 
protest.  The  government  stands  absolutely 
neutral  in  its  relation  to  religion,  and  the  sepa 
ration  of  the  State  from  the  Church  is  complete. 
The  name  of  the  Supreme  Being  does  not  occur 
in  the  Constitution,  and  government  institu 
tions  of  all  kinds  are  entirely  free  from  control 
by  any  kind  of  ecclesiastical  organization. 

The  American  people  have  always  been  and 
are  to-day  a  religious  people.  They  formed 
the  habit  early  in  their  history  of  suspending 
business  one  day  in  seven,  and  of  keeping 
Sunday  not  only  as  a  day  of  rest  but  as  a  day 
of  worship;  and,  while  they  have  ceased  to 
be  Sabbatarians  in  the  rigid  sense  and  have 
come  to  believe  that  the  Sabbath  was  made 
for  man  and  not  man  for  the  Sabbath,  they 
still  guard  the  freedom  of  the  day  from  the 
intrusion  of  all  business  which  is  not  neces 
sary  for  human  safety  and  comfort,  and  they 
attend  religious  services  in  large  numbers. 
They  have  no  possession  of  greater  value  from 
a  religious  or  domestic  point  of  view  or  as  a 
means  of  public  health,  of  wholesome  out-of- 

318 


COUNTRY  AND  PEOPLE 

door  life,  of  the  rest  that  "reknits  the  ravelled 
sleeve  of  care,"  and  gives  workers  of  all  kinds 
renewal  of  energy,  than  the  weekly  holiday 
which  their  ancestors,  for  two  thousand  years, 
have  set  aside  for  the  things  of  the  spirit. 
One  of  their  wisest  thinkers  has  touched  the 
secret  of  the  Sunday  peace  which  falls  on  the 
rushing  industrial  life  of  America  and  is  dear 
to  Americans  of  every  creed  in  these  eloquent 
words :  When  the  seventh  day  dawns,  white 
with  the  worship  of  uncounted  centuries,  "the 
cathedral  music  of  history  breathes  through 
it  a  psalm  to  our  solitude."  Like  a  quiet 
path,  through  which  all  one's  ancestors  have 
walked,  this  day,  set  apart  to  rest  and  worship, 
runs  back  to  the  far  beginnings  of  Christian 
civilization  and  is  one  of  its  most  precious 
gifts  to  the  world. 

A  majority  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States  have  some  religious  connection,  and  the 
churches  are  the  center  of  devotional,  chari 
table  and  altruistic  activity  of  many  kinds. 
Professor  Miinsterberg,  a  critical  student 
of  American  conditions,  has  said  that  "the 
entire  American  people  are  in  fact  profoundly 

319 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

religious,  and  have  been,  from  the  day  when 
the  Pilgrim  Fathers  landed,  down  to  the 
present  moment."  In  nearly  every  docu 
ment  which  conveyed  authority  to  discoverers, 
explorers  and  settlers  in  the  New  World  the 
Christian  religion  was  recognized,  and  in  a 
decision  rendered  in  1891  by  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  these  words  are 
found:  "If  we  pass  beyond  these  matters 
to  a  view  of  American  life  as  expressed  by  its 
laws,  its  business,  its  customs  and  its  society, 
we  find  everywhere  a  clear  recognition  of  the 
same  truth.  Among  other  matters  note  the 
following:  The  form  of  oath  universally  pre 
vailing,  concluding  with  an  appeal  to  the  Al 
mighty  ;  the  custom  of  opening  sessions  of  all 
deliberate  bodies  with  prayer;  the  prefatory 
words  of  all  wills:  'In  the  name  of  God, 
Amen';  the  laws  respecting  the  observance  of 
the  Sabbath  with  a  general  cessation  of  all 
secular  business,  and  the  closing  of  courts, 
legislatures  and  similar  public  assemblies  on 
that  day ;  the  churches  and  church  organiza 
tions  which  abound  in  every  city,  town  and 
hamlet ;  the  multitude  of  charitable  organiza- 

320 


COUNTRY  AND  PEOPLE 

tions  existing  everywhere  under  Christian  aus 
pices  ;  the  gigantic  missionary  associations, 
with  general  support,  and  aiming  to  establish 
Christian  Missions  in  every  quarter  of  the 
globe.  These  and  many  other  matters  which 
might  be  noticed  add  a  volume  of  unofficial 
declarations  to  the  mass  of  organic  utterances 
that  this  is  a  Christian  nation." 

In  the  American  temperament,  in  spite  of 
its  practical  energy  and  consuming  activity, 
there  is  a  deep  spring  of  idealism  which  has 
so  far  found  inadequate  expression  in  art,  but 
has  been  an  abundant  source  of  national 
inspiration  in  religious  activity,  education 
and  practical  helpfulness.  The  division  of 
Christian  people  into  sects,  the  rigid  defini 
tions  which  their  faith  has  often  had  in  terms  of 
traditional  theology,  the  intense  feeling  with 
which  creeds  have  been  not  only  held  but  im 
posed  upon  others,  the  rapid  spread  of  crude 
mysticism  combined  with  empirical  uses,  the 
attraction  of  a  bald  literalism  for  half -educated 
people,  are  the  excesses,  the  one-sided  expres 
sions,  of  a  deep  and  lasting  interest  in  the 
ultimate  questions  of  human  destiny.  In  the 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

busiest  of  countries  there  is  one  question 
which  is  never  silenced  —  the  question  of 
immortality. 

The  religious  attitude  of  the  American,  which 
was  once  largely  subjective  is  now  largely 
objective ;  and  the  test  of  faith  is  no  longer 
the  acceptance  of  a  definition  but  some  form 
of  service  of  humanity.  There  are  certain 
facts  which  as  a  believer  in  a  historical  reli 
gion  the  Christian  in  America  holds  as  funda 
mental,  but  the  value  of  a  man's  religion  is 
estimated  in  terms  of  social  service.  The 
Puritan  emphasis  on  conduct  as  the  only 
convincing  evidence  of  the  religious  spirit 
makes  itself  felt  more  distinctly  to-day  than 
ever  before  in  the  history  of  the  country ; 
but  the  weight  of  that  emphasis  has  been 
transferred  from  the  individual  to  society, 
and  the  impulse  which  is  stirring  Americans 
as  they  have  not  been  stirred  since  the  war 
which  ended  fifty  years  ago,  and  which  is 
behind  the  leading  political  parties,  is  the 
determination  to  make  industrial  and  social 
conditions  conform  to  the  standards  of  Chris 
tian  ethics.  Seventeenth-century  Puritanism 


COUNTRY  AND  PEOPLE 

insisted  that  a  man  should  save  his  own 
soul ;  twentieth-century  Puritanism  insists 
that  he  shall  save  society  by  creating  condi 
tions  which  shall  help  men  to  live  wholesome 
lives  as  human  beings. 

There  has  been  no  more  generous  and  un 
selfish  example  of  the  desire  of  the  American 
to  give  the  world  the  best  he  has  than  the 
missionary  movement,  which  took  an  organized 
form  in  Williams  College  one  hundred  and 
seven  years  ago ;  a  noble  adventure  in  faith 
and  service  which  has  made  the  world  familiar 
with  the  highest  types  of  American  character ; 
an  organized  friendship  of  the  spirit  which  has 
translated  the  great  words  "  Peace  on  earth 
and  good  will  to  men"  into  all  languages. 

The  country  has  always  been  the  home  of 
the  reforming  spirit,  and  in  their  most  com 
fortable  days  Americans  have  never  been 
satisfied.  They  grew  restive  under  the 
existence  of  slavery,  which  was  carried  to 
America  at  a  time  when  it  was  accepted  as  a 
normal  condition  in  the  greater  part  of  the 
world;  they  finally  destroyed  it  by  an  im 
mense  sacrifice  of  life  and  property.  They 

323 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

have  not  yet  succeeded  in  solving  the  difficult 
problem  of  controlling  the  manufacture  and 
sale  of  intoxicating  liquor,  but  they  have 
never  ceased  to  make  experiments  and  they 
have  won  the  fight  in  many  of  the  states. 
For  many  years  a  vigorous  agitation  was 
conducted  against  Mormonism  until  the  plural 
marriage  was  heavily  penalized.  It  is  im 
possible  to  open  an  American  newspaper  with 
out  reading  reports  of  the  proceedings  of  some 
organization  to  protect  women  and  children 
from  industrial  oppression,  to  open  schools  in 
the  slums,  to  build  or  endow  hospitals,  to 
secure  playgrounds  for  children;  in  a  word, 
in  manifold  ways  to  make  life  more  whole 
some  and  happy  for  the  less  fortunate  and 
helpless  members  of  society.  The  American 
who  does  not  belong  to  half  a  dozen  organiza 
tions  of  this  kind  and  is  not  working  on  half 
a  dozen  committees  is  a  rare  person.  The 
country  is  ravaged  by  societies  formed  to  do 
good  to  somebody;  men  of  means,  large  or 
small,  are  besieged  with  appeals  for  money 
for  charitable  uses,  for  education,  for  public 
purposes.  In  1912  the  amount  given  by 

324 


COUNTRY  AND  PEOPLE 

individuals  for  education,  for  religious  uses, 
for  general  beneficence,  not  including  pro 
visions  of  all  kinds  for  the  poor,  exceeded, 
according  to  a  report  reprinted  in  a  Tokyo 
newspaper,  $315,000,000.  There  have  been 
humorous  proposals  to  organize  a  society  for 
the  suppression  of  philanthropy  and  reform; 
but  Americans  are  every  year  giving  more 
time  and  money  for  altruistic  uses. 

One  of  the  ablest  American  politicians  has 
said  that  if  a  political  movement  assumes  a 
moral  aspect,  nothing  can  resist  it.  The  one 
appeal  which  arouses  enthusiasm  in  Americans 
to-day  is  the  ethical  appeal,  and  the  men  who 
are  now  the  leaders  of  public  opinion  are 
teachers  of  public  morals.  Those  who  have 
not  understood  the  tasks  laid  on  Americans 
in  making  a  home  for  men  and  women  of  all 
races  in  the  New  World,  nor  the  temptations 
which  have  assailed  them,  have  so  often  re 
peated  the  charge  that  Americans  are  materi 
alists  that  Europe  has  fallen  into  the  habit  of 
automatically  reiterating  a  phrase  which,  to 
one  who  understands  the  temper  of  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  is  not  only  mis- 

325 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

leading,  but  a  caricature  of  the  American 
spirit.  What  makes  a  man  a  materialist  ? 
Not  dealing  with  material  substances  and 
forms  and  physical  forces,  for  the  vast  major 
ity  of  men  spend  their  lives  in  patient  toil  with 
the  stubborn  stuff  in  which  and  with  which 
the  whole  world  works.  One  does  not  call 
the  architect  a  materialist  because  he  handles 
enormous  masses  of  stone  or  iron,  or  the 
painter  a  materialist  because  he  is  soiled  with 
pigments,  or  the  musician  a  materialist  because 
he  uses  instruments  of  wood  and  ivory  and 
metal.  A  materialist  is  a  man  who  works 
with  materials  and  is  satisfied  with  them; 
whose  soul  is  colored  by  the  things  in  which  he 
deals,  "like  the  dyer's  hand,"  to  recall  Shake 
speare.  Those  who  know  America  know  that 
it  is  a  national  .peculiarity  to  be  satisfied  with 
nothing.  Americans  are  not  discontented, 
but  they  are  dissatisfied ;  they  always  want 
something  better  than  they  possess ;  they  are 
eager  to  get  the  best  life  offers ;  as  soon  as 
they  get  money,  they  want  education,  oppor 
tunities  of  travel,  art. 

They  are  charged  with  the  willingness  to 
326 


COUNTRY  AND  PEOPLE 

sell  their  souls  for  money, — a  kind  of  barter 
which  is  extensively  carried  on  in  all  parts  of 
the  world.  But  Americans  care  far  less  for 
money  than  many  other  races.  The  attrac 
tions  of  business  on  a  great  scale  for  the 
energetic  American  is  the  opportunity  of 
putting  forth  his  full  strength,  of  matching 
himself  against  obstacles  and  overcoming 
them,  of  measuring  his  ability  against  the 
ability  of  competitors ;  the  excitement  of 
playing  the  game  interests  him  more  than 
winning  the  stakes.  When  money  in  large 
quantities  comes  into  his  hands  he  does  not 
hoard  it;  misers  are  almost  unknown  in 
America ;  he  spends  it  freely ;  he  often 
lavishes  it  on  his  family,  and  harms  his  chil 
dren  by  his  unwise  generosity;  he  gives  it 
away  in  increasing  amounts.  The  great  for 
tunes  which  have  subjected  him  to  sharp  criti 
cism  in  America  have  made  vast  contributions 
to  public  uses. 

Contrary  to  the  opinion  based  on  the 
traditional  ignorance  of  American  conditions 
which  is  now  slowly  yielding  to  the  pressure 
of  knowledge,  the  American  is  very  emotional 

327 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

and  governed  largely  by  sentiment.  The 
terrible  struggle  between  the  States,  in  which 
nearly  800,000  men  were  killed  or  wounded, 
and  the  cost  of  which  was  probably  not  less 
than  $4,000,000,000,  not  including  the  destruc 
tion  of  slave  property  in  the  South  to  the 
extent  of  $2,000,000,000,  showed  that  when 
sentiment  is  involved,  the  Americans  do  not 
count  the  cost.  That  is  one  of  the  qualities 
which  reveal  the  ineradicable  and  controlling 
idealism  which  has  been  a  dominating  ele 
ment  in  America  since  the  first  colonists 
braved  the  dangers  of  a  new  world  for  con 
science'  sake.  That  idealism  has  not  yet 
found  adequate  expression  in  their  art;  but 
it  has  shaped  American  institutions.  The 
government  is  the  most  daring  credit  system 
the  world  has  ever  known ;  it  rests  on  the 
assumption  that  men  without  regard  to  edu 
cation  or  social  condition  can  be  trusted  with 
the  management  of  the  most  important  affairs 
of  life. 

Americans  have  regarded  their  freedom  and 
their  opportunities  as  a  trust  for  humanity 
and  have  shared  them  with  men  and  women 

328 


COUNTRY  AND  PEOPLE 

of  the  whole  western  world.  They  have  made 
provision  for  universal  education;  they  have 
responded  to  every  appeal  for  aid  from  other 
nations  in  times  of  calamity ;  their  fleet  went 
instantly  to  the  rescue  of  Messina,  and  they 
organized  rebuilding  on  a  large  scale ;  they 
bore  the  burden  of  a  war  to  give  Cuba  her 
freedom ;  the  story  of  their  diplomacy  in 
Japan  and  China  need  not  be  rehearsed  here ; 
their  service  to  the  Philippines  is  recognized 
by  every  traveler;  to-day  they  have  under 
taken  to  reorganize  their  business  so  as  to 
bring  it  into  accord  with  the  spirit  of  their 
institutions  and  with  the  Christian  ethics  they 
profess.  Their  faults  are  recorded  in  the 
newspapers  of  the  world.  They  do  not  ask 
for  charity  of  judgment ;  they  must  be  judged 
by  what  they  have  done  and  are  trying  to  do 
under  the  circumstances  in  which  they  have 
been  placed ;  and  their  tendency  to  take  a 
cheerful  view  of  things  induces  them  to  hope 
that  the  world  will  sometime  take  the  trouble 
to  understand  these  circumstances.  Whether 
it  does  or  does  not,  the  Americans  will  con 
tinue  to  strive  to  achieve  a  solution  not  only 

329 


AMERICAN  IDEALS 

of  the  political  problem,  which  Matthew 
Arnold  declared  they  had  solved,  but  of  the 
human  problem,  which  is  infinitely  more  com 
plex  and  difficult,  and  for  which  no  race  or 
nation  has  yet  found  a  final  solution. 


330 


INDEX 


Adams,  Herbert,  portrait  busts 
by,  209. 

Adams,  John,  literary  work  of, 
109. 

Adams,  John  Quincy,  President 
and  Harvard  professor,  246. 

Adams,  Samuel,  defense  of  rights 
of  Americans  written  by,  107. 

Advanced  work  in  American 
universities,  257  ff. 

Albany  Capitol,  paintings  by 
W.  M.  Hunt  in  the,  199-200. 

Aldrich,  Thomas  Bailey,  tribute 
to  work  of,  185. 

Allen,  James  Lane,  literary  art 
of,  175. 

Allston,  Washington,  196. 

America,  misunderstanding  of,  by 
foreigners,  6-7 ;  fundamental 
differences  between  political 
and  social  structure  and  that 
of  older  countries,  13  ff.;  sig 
nificance  of  discovery  of,  39- 
40;  the  settlement  of,  42-60; 
colonies  of,  experiment  sta 
tions  in  science  of  government, 
61  ff . ;  mistaken  policy  in  man 
agement  of  colonies  of,  62-67; 
condition  of,  at  time  colonists 
won  independence,  68-70;  po 
litical  organization  formulated 
for,  70-81,  274  ff. ;  develop 
ment  of  the  continent  by  the 
new  nation,  81-90;  literature 


of,  in  provincial  period,  91-127 ; 
sectional  literature  of,  128-155 ; 
national  literature  of,  following 
War  between  the  States,  156  ff . ; 
architecture  in,  189-194 ;  prog 
ress  in  painting  in,  194-203; 
sculpture  in,  203-210;  music 
in,  210-213;  education  and 
life  in  school  and  college,  214- 
244;  universities  of,  245-257; 
opportunities  for  advanced  and 
research  work,  257-266;  as 
the  land  of  opportunity,  285- 
290 ;  qualities  of  neighborliness 
and  good-fellowship  in,  290- 
294  ;  effects  of  different  climates 
and  environments  of,  296-298 ; 
influence  of  vastness  of  land 
scape,  298  ff. 

Americanisms,  origins  of  phrases 
called,  98-99. 

"American  Political  Ideas," 
quoted,  75-76. 

Americans,  interest  and  admira 
tion  felt  by,  for  the  Japanese 
nation,  1-2;  possibility  of 
interpretation  of,  by  an  Ameri 
can  writer,  11-12;  attitude  of, 
toward  education,  14-16,  23- 
25,  214  ff.,  316;  political  in 
stitutions  favored  by,  17-18; 
suitability  of  form  of  govern 
ment  to,  18-19;  consciousness 
of  perils  of  system,  19-20;  risks 
of  misrepresentation  and  mis 
understanding  felt  by,  20-23; 


331 


INDEX 


talking  and  writing  by,  with 
out  preparation,  26  ff . ;  news 
papers  of,  and  wrong  impres 
sions  given  by,  28-33;  racial 
strains  in  composition  of,  42- 
60,  267-269;  clinging  of,  to 
the  English  language,  96-99; 
literary  foundations  of,  99-102 ; 
advance  of  the  national  spirit 
among,  resulting  from  the 
War  between  the  States,  154, 
156;  trait  of  individual  ini 
tiative  in,  281 ;  self-reliance  of, 
281-283 ;  unlimited  opportuni 
ties  for,  285-287;  qualities  of 
helpfulness  and  hope,  288; 
neighborliness  and  good-fellow 
ship  supreme  among  qualities 
of,  290-294;  varieties  of,  with 
variations  in  climate  and  en 
vironment,  295-300;  effect  of 
great  scale  of  country  upon, 
300  ff. ;  explanation  of  charge 
of  materialism  brought  against, 
306;  attitude  toward  religion, 
317-323;  the  reforming  spirit 
among,  323-325 ;  emotion  and 
sentiment  of,  327-328;  the 
promise  of  further  progress  by, 
328-330. 

Andover,  academy  at,  225. 

Architecture,  colonial,  189-190; 
chaotic  period  following  War 
between  the  States,  190-194; 
modern  improvement  in,  194. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  quoted,  115, 
330. 

Athletics,  interest  in,  at  American 
colleges,  238-243. 

"Autobiography,"  Franklin's,  118. 

Automobiles,  as  a  means  of  na 
tional  development,  158-159. 

"Awakening  of  Helena  Richie," 
181. 


B 


Ball,  Thomas,  work  in  sculpture 
by,  208. 

Baltimore,  the  Lords,  56. 

Bancroft,  George,  127,  170. 

Bartlett,  the  "Lafayette"  and 
"Genius  of  Man"  of,  209. 

"Bathers,"  W.  M.  Hunt's,  199. 

"Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic, 
The,"  154. 

Beaux,  Cecilia,  203. 

Berea  College,  283. 

Bible,  results  of  translation  of, 
45-47;  as  a  vitalizing  power 
with  American  colonists,  101- 
102. 

"Biglow  Papers,"  Lowell's,  138. 

Blair,  James,  218. 

"Blithedale  Romance,"  Haw 
thorne's,  144. 

Books  of  early  American  settlers, 
94-96. 

Boston,  music  in,  212. 

Boston  Latin  School,  217. 

"Boy  and  the  Butterfly,"  W.  M. 
Hunt's,  199. 

Boyle,  "Stone  Age"  of,  209. 

"Bracebridge  Hall,"  Irving's,  122. 

Brewster,  William,  94. 

Bringhurst,  "Kiss  of  Eternity" 
of,  209-210. 

Brown,  Charles  Brockden,  145. 

Brownell,  critical  essays  by,  186- 
187. 

Brunetiere,  on  American  dis 
tances,  157. 

Bryant,  William  Cullen,  discus 
sion  of  work  of,  128,  133-135; 
influence  of  vast  scale  of 
America  on  poetry  of,  301-302. 

Bryce,  James,  on  the  American 
Constitution,  74 ;  on  the  West 
of  America,  83. 


332 


INDEX 


Bryn  Mawr  College,  237. 
Buddha,    thoughts    inspired    by 

figure   of,    300. 
Burroughs,    John,    186;     nature 

writing  of,  contrasted  with  that 

of  Jefferies,  310. 
Butler,  Nicholas  Murray,  on  the 

Puritan    strain    in   Americans, 

50-51. 


Cable,  George  W.,  175. 

Cabot,  John,  40. 

California,  discovery  of  gold  in, 

89. 

Carnegie    Endowment    for    In 
ternational  Peace,  265-266. 
Carnegie     Foundation     for     the 

Advancement  of  Teaching,  263- 

264. 

Carnegie  Institution  of  Washing 
ton,  262. 
Carolinas,  settlement  of  the,  57- 

58. 
"Certain    Rich    Man,"    White's, 

181. 
"Chanting     Cherubs,"      Green- 

ough's,  204. 
Chatham,  Lord,  109. 
Chicago,    University  of,  age    of, 

249 ;   endowment  of,  250. 
Children,  American  poetry  which 

appeals  to,  135-136. 
Civil  War,  the  American,  8,  153, 

158. 
Clark  University,  254 ;    teaching 

of  pedagogy  at,  258-259. 
Clemens,  Samuel  N.,  176. 
Cleveland,  Grover,  15. 
Climate,  effect  of,  on  people  in 

different  sections  of  America, 

296-298. 
Colby,  Frank,  186. 


Colleges,  the  first  American, 
217  ff. ;  courses  and  system  of 
education  in,  226  ff . ;  elective 
system  in,  232-234 ;  for  women, 
236-238;  devotion  to  sports 
and  athletics  at,  238-242; 
social  life  at,  242-244. 

Colonial  system,  mistakes  of  the 
old,  61-67. 

Columbia  University,  gradual 
development  and  present  size 
and  endowment  of,  249-250; 
School  of  Mines  at,  258; 
Teachers  College  at,  258. 

Columbus,  Christopher,  40. 

Comenius,  Bishop,  quotation 
from,  227. 

"  Commemoration  Ode,"  Lowell's, 
137. 

Commerce,  early,  between  Europe 
and  Asia,  36-38. 

Commissioner  of  Education,  na 
tional,  223. 

Composers,  American,  213. 

"Conquest  of  Granada,"  Irving's, 
122, 169. 

Constitution,  the  Federal,  74-77 ; 
debates  and  discussion  preced 
ing  the,  112;  form  of  govern 
ment  created  by,  275-276. 

Continental  Congress,  the,  69. 

Cooper,  J.  F.,  career  and  work  of, 
144-148. 

Copley,  John,  194,  196. 

Cosmopolitan  life,  fiction  dealing 
with,  177-178. 

Cotton  gin,  invention  of  the,  83. 

Crothers,  Samuel  McChord,  186. 

D 

Dallin,  "Signal  of  Peace"  of,  2C9. 

Distances  in  America,  Brunetiere 

on  supposed  effects  of,  157. 


333 


INDEX 


"Dixie,"  song,  155. 

Dutch,  contribution  of,  to  Ameri 

can     citizenship     and     ideals 

51-55. 
Dvorak,  New  World  Symphom 

of,  213. 

E 

Education,  attitude  of  American! 
as  a  nation  toward,  14-16,  23- 
25,  214  ff.;  National  Bureau 
of,  223;  endowments  for  en 
couraging  advanced,  262-266 
gifts  of  the  wealthy  to,  314-315 , 
viewed  by  Americans  as  a 
symbol  of  the  larger  freedom 
316-317. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  115-116. 

Elective  system  in  colleges,  232- 
234 ;  reasons  for  introduction 
256. 

Eliot,  Charles  W.,  246-247. 

Elwell,  "Ceres"  and  "Kronos" 
of,  209. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  15 ;  liter 
ary  production  of,  138-139; 
on  America  as  the  country  of 
opportunity,  285. 

England,  influence  of  universities 
of,  on  American  colleges,  238- 
239,  254-255,  256-257. 

English  language,  American 
settlers  and  the,  96-98. 

Essay,  the,  in  modern  American 
literature,  186-187. 

"Evangeline,"  Longfellow's,  125. 

Everett,  Edward,  127,  246. 

Exeter,  academy  at,  225. 


Farmers,  increasing  importance  of 

American,  304-305. 
Farragut,  Saint  Gaudens'  statue 

of,  207. 


Federalist  party,  79. 

Federalist,  The,  113. 

Fichte,  quoted,  8. 

Fiction,  writers  of  modern,  172- 

182. 
Financial  development  of  America, 

311. 

Fiske,  John,  172. 
Foster,  Stephen,  212. 
Foundations    for   research    work 

and  for  endowment  of  higher 

education,  262-266. 
Fox,  Charles  James,  109. 
Fox,  John,  Jr.,  176. 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  15,  73,  106; 

"Autobiography"  of,  118. 
"Freedom  of  the  Will,"  Edwards', 

116. 
Freedom  of  worship  in  America, 

317-318. 
Freeman,  Mary  Wilkins,  177. 
French,  Daniel,  209. 
French  and  Indian  War,  106. 
French    ideals    and    methods    in 

University  of  Virginia,  220. 
Fulton,  Robert,  82. 

G 

jarland,  Hamlin,  177. 

General  Education  Board,  work 

of,  263. 
George    III    and    the    American 

colonies,  65-67. 
Georgia,  types  of  native  character 

furnished  to  fiction  by,  176. 
Germany,    influence    of   thought 

and  literature  of,  on  American 

culture,  126-127;  influence  of, 

on  American  universities,  254- 

257. 
Gladstone,  W.  E.,  Morley  quoted 

on,  8. 
Goethe,  quoted,  4. 


334 


INDEX 


Good-fellowship,  American  re 
gard  for,  290-292. 

Government,  bases  of  the  Ameri 
can,  267  ff . ;  form  of  political 
organization,  274-276. 

Great  American  Desert,  87-88. 

"Greek  Slave,"  Powers',  204. 

Greenough,  "Chanting  Cherubs" 
of,  204. 

Groton  School,  225. 

Group  system  of  study  in  colleges, 
234. 


H 


Hall,  G.  Stanley,  259. 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  17-18,  73; 
great  services  of,  to  American 
government,  77  ff . ;  contribu 
tions  of,  to  debates  out  of 
which  the  Constitution  grew, 
112-113. 

Hampton  Institute,  283. 

Harris,  Joel  Chandler,  176. 

Harte,  Bret,  176. 

Harvard,  John,  library  of,  95 ; 
founding  of  Harvard  College 
by,  217. 

Harvard  College,  founding  of, 
217-218;  the  multitude  of 
courses  at,  235 ;  significance  of 
word  "university"  as  applied 
to,  253-254. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  contri 
bution  of,  to  American  liter 
ature,  141-145. 

Henry,  Patrick,  110. 

Herrick,  Robert,  177. 

"Hiawatha,"  Longfellow's,  125. 

High  School,  place  of,  in  American 
scheme  of  education,  224-225. 

Hill  School,  the,  225. 

Historical  literature,  growth  of, 
168-172. 


Holmes,  O.  W.,  literary  produc 
tion  of,  139-140. 

Homer,  Winslow,  202. 

"House  of  Mirth,  The,"  180. 

"House  of  the  Seven  Gables," 
144. 

Howells,  William  Dean,  178, 
179-180. 

"Huckleberry  Finn,"  176. 

Hudson,  Henry,  52. 

Hudson  River  School  of  painting, 
so  called,  197. 

Huguenots  in  America,  54-55,  58 ; 
in  and  about  New  York  City, 
120. 

Hunt,  William  Morris,  199-200. 


Idealism  found  in  the  American 

temperament,  321. 
"Indian  Hunter,"  Ward's,  207. 
Indians     in    the     West,    89-90; 

schools  for,  222. 
Inness,  George,  198. 
Institute  of  Technology,  Boston, 

258. 

"Iron  Woman,  The,"  181. 
Irving,     Washington,     121-123 ; 

historical  work  of,  169. 
Italy,   part  played  by,   in  early 

discovery  and  exploration,  39. 


James,  Henry,  177,  179,  180. 

Japan,  interest  in  and  admiration 
felt  by  Americans  for,  1-2; 
difficulty  experienced  by  for 
eigners  in  understanding,  5-6 ; 
interpretation  of  people  of,  by 
Japanese  writers,  11;  conform- 
ability  of  government  of,  to 


335 


INDEX 


genius  of  its  people,  18 ;  polite 
ness  a  matter  of  national  disci 
pline  in,  22;  richness  of,  in 
proverbs,  99 ;  relations  between 
business  and  science  recognized 
in  educational  scheme  of,  229 ; 
effect  of  training  in  "team 
play"  shown  by,  242. 

Jarvis,  John  Wesley,  quoted  con 
cerning  early  painters,  195- 
196. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  79,  109,  113- 
114;  University  of  Virginia 
founded  by,  220. 

Jewett,  Sarah  Orne,  177. 

Johns  Hopkins  University,  Sidney 
Lanier  at,  164;  study  of  con 
temporary  history  at,  171; 
age  of,  249;  establishment 
of,  by  private  endowment,  250 ; 
significance  of  word  "univer 
sity"  as  applied  to,  254. 

Johnson,  Eastman,  202. 

"Journal,"  Woolman's,  117-118. 

Journalism  in  America,  28-33. 

Jumel  Mansion,  New  York,  190. 


Kindergartens,  education  in,  222. 
Kipling,     Rudyard,     on    certain 
national  traits,  291. 


"Lady  Baltimore,"  Wister's,  181. 
La  Farge,  John,  200-201. 
Lamb,  Charles,  4. 
Land,    gifts   of,    for   educational 

purposes,    222-223 ;     influence 

of  owners  of,  304-305. 
Landscape,  effect  of  vastness  of, 

on   American   character,    133- 

134,  298  ff. 


Lanier,  Sidney,  career  and 
work  of,  164-167;  contrast 
between  nature  verse  of,  and 
that  of  Wordsworth,  310. 

Lawrenceville  School,  225. 

Leatherstocking  Tales,  Cooper's, 
147-148. 

"Legend  of  Sleepy  Hollow," 
123. 

Lehigh  University,  254,  258. 

Leland  Stanford  University,  es 
tablishment  of,  by  private  en 
dowment,  250. 

Libraries  of  early  American 
settlers,  94-96. 

"Life  of  Columbus,"  Irving's, 
122. 

"Life  on  the  Mississippi," 
Mark  Twain's,  176. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  15;  training 
possessed  by,  for  the  Presi 
dency,  24 ;  statue  of,  in  Capitol, 
Washington,  206;  statues  in 
Lincoln  Park,  Chicago,  and 
Rock  Creek  Cemetery,  Wash 
ington,  207-208. 

Liquor  question,  the,  324. 

Locke,  John,  scheme  of  govern 
ment  of,  57. 

Longfellow,  H.  W.,  123-127. 

Lopez,  "Sprinter"  of,  209. 

Louisiana  Purchase,  the,  82. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  on  Thomas 
Jefferson,  109 ;  consideration  of 
career  and  literary  work  of, 
136-137;  on  the  object  of 
college  education,  228;  an 
example  of  the  educational 
leader  as  a  public  man,  246. 

M 


McMaster,  John  Bach,  172. 
Macmonnies,  work  of,  209. 


336 


INDEX 


MacNeil,  "Sun  Vow"  of,  209. 
"Madam     Delphine,"      Cable's, 

175. 

Madison,  James,  44,  73,  113. 
Manual      training      in     schools, 

224. 
"Marble    Faun,"    Hawthorne's, 

143. 

Mark  Twain,  176. 
"Mars  Chan,"  Page's,  175. 
Marshall,  John,  44,  80-81. 
"Marshes   of    Glynn,"    Lanier's, 

166;    contrasted  with   "Lines 

on  Tintern  Abbey,"  310. 
Martin,  Homer  D.,  198,  199. 
"Maryland,      My      Maryland," 

154. 
Maryland,     settlement     of,     56- 

57. 
Materialism,  charge  of,  brought 

against    Americans,    306-307 ; 

misleading  nature  of  charge  of, 

325-326. 

Matthews,  Brander,  186. 
"Meh  Lady,"  Page's,  175. 
Mercersberg  Academy,  225. 
Mexican  War,  the,  89. 
Military  Academy,  United  States, 

223. 

Missionary  movement,  the,  323. 
Monuments,  shocking  American, 

191-192. 

Moody,  W.  V.,  185. 
Morley,  John,  quoted,  8. 
Mormonism,    agitation     against, 

324. 

Motley,  J.  L.,  169-170. 
Mt.  Holyoke  College,  237. 
Mount  Vernon,   architecture  of, 

190. 

Miinsterberg,  Hugo,  on  religious 
ness  of  Americans  as  a  people, 

319-320. 
Murfree,  Mary  N.,  176. 


Music,  progress  of  America  in, 

210-213. 
Musical  festivals,  212. 


N 

National  Bureau  of  Education, 
223. 

Nature,  effect  of  scale  on  kind  of 
love  shown  by  Americans  for, 
309-310. 

Naval  Academy,  United  States, 
223. 

Negroes,  schools  for,  222. 

Neighborliness,  value  placed  on, 
in  America,  290-294. 

New  England,  the  settlers  of,  44- 
51 ;  fiction  dealing  with  life  in, 
177;  attitude  in,  toward  edu 
cation,  215 ;  quality  of  people 
bred  in,  296-297. 

New  Nether]  and  Company,  53. 

Newspapers,  American,  28-33 ; 
daily  story  of  humanity  told  in, 
184. 

New  York,  Dutch  settlement  of, 
51-55;  literature  which  began 
in,  during  provincial  period, 
119-123;  interest  in  music  in, 
211-212. 

"New  York,  History  of,"  Irving's, 
121-122. 

Nitobe,  Dr.,  criticism  of  Bryant's 
"To  a  Waterfowl "  by,  301. 

Norris,  Frank,  181-182. 

Novel,  the  modern  American, 
172-182. 


"Old     Creole     Days,"    Cable's, 

175. 
Opportunity,  America  as  the  land 

of,  285. 


337 


INDEX 


Orchestras   in   modern   America, 

211-212. 
Otis,  James,  109. 


Page,  Thomas  Nelson,  175. 
Painting,  American,  194-203. 
Palmer,  work  in  sculpture  by,  208. 
Pamphlets      of       Revolutionary 

period,  108. 
Parish  schools  of  Roman  Catholic 

Church,  222. 
Parkman,  Francis,  170. 
Partridge,  William  Ordway,  209. 
Pasteur,    Louis,    on    democracy, 

20. 

Peale,  American  painter,  194, 196. 
Pedagogy,  education  in,  258-259. 
Penn,  William,  55. 
Pennsylvania,  settlement  of,  55- 

56. 
"Pere  Goriot,"  a  Parisian  rather 

than  French  novel,  173. 
Perry,  Bliss,  186. 
Philadelphia,  painters  of,  196. 
Physical    training    at    American 

colleges,  241-242. 
Pilgrims,  the,  51. 
"Pilot,"  Cooper's,  146. 
Pioneers  in  Western  States,  85-87. 
Plymouth,  Mass.,  settlement  of, 

44. 
Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  consideration 

of  work  of,  149-152. 
Poetry,    comparative    decline    in 

vogue    of,    184 ;     modern    ex 
ponents    of,    185 ;     themes    of 

present-day,  185-186. 
Political  organization  of  American 

nation,  274-275. 
Politicians    and    good-fellowship, 

291-292. 
Polytechnic  Institute,  Troy,  258. 


Powers,  "Greek  Slave"  of,  204; 
limitations  of,  as  a  sculptor, 
206. 

Pratt,  Bela,  209. 

"Precaution,"  Cooper's,  146. 

Prescott,  W.  H.,  169. 

Presidents  of  United  States, 
education  and  intellectual  at 
tainments  of,  14-16,  245-246. 

Princeton  University,  220. 

Protection,  policy  of,  contrasted 
with  customary  self-reliance  of 
Americans,  284. 

Puritanism,  rise  of,  47-48 ;  char 
acteristics  of,  48  ff. ;  the 
spirit  of  freedom  in,  50. 

Q 

Quakers  in  America,  55-56 ;  John 
Wool  man  a  notable  represent 
ative  of  the,  116-118. 

Queen  Anne  architecture  in 
America,  193,  193. 


R 


Races,  variety  of,  in  composition 
of  Americans,  42-60;  inter 
mingling  of,  in  every  nation, 
267-269. 

Radcliffe  College,  237. 

Railroads,  transcontinental,  90. 

"Red  Rover,"  Cooper's,  146. 

Reform  movements  in  America, 
323-325. 

Religion,  place  of,  in  American 
civilization,  317  ff. 

Republicans,  early  party  of,  led 
by  Jefferson,  79. 

Research  work  at  universities, 
260-261;  special  foundations 
for,  262  ff. 

Rhodes,  James  Ford,  172. 


338 


INDEX 


"Rip  Van  Winkle,"  Irving's, 
123. 

"Rise  of  Silas  Lapham,"  Howells', 
179-180. 

Rockefeller  Institute  for  Medical 
Research,  262-263. 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  15-16. 

"Rubaiyat,"  Vedder's  illustra 
tions  for,  198-199. 

Ruckstuhl,  "Spirit  of  the  Con 
federacy"  of,  209. 

Russell  Sage  Foundation  for 
investigation  and  eradication 
of  causes  of  poverty  and  ig 
norance,  265. 


S 


Sabbath,     the     American,    318- 

319. 

Saint  Gaudens,  Augustus,  207. 
St.  Paul's  School,  225. 
Sargent,  John  S.,  203. 
Scale,   impress   of,   on   American 

literature,  thought,  and  charac 
ter,  298  ff. 
"Scarlet    Letter,"    Hawthorne's, 

143-144. 
Schools,  early  American,  214  ff. 

See  Education. 
Schouler,  James,  172. 
"Science     of     English     Verse," 

Lanier's,  165. 

Scientific  universities,  257-258. 
Scotch-Irish  in  America,  55,  56, 

57,  58. 

Sculpture,  American,  203-210. 
Sedgwick,  Henry  D.,  186. 
Shaw  Memorial,  Boston,  208. 
Sherborne     house,     Portsmouth, 

190. 
Sherman  Memorial,  New  York, 

208. 
"Sketch  Book,"  Irving's,  122. 


Slavery,  introduction  of,  43; 
restiveness  of  Americans  under 
existence  of,  and  final  destruc 
tion,  323. 

Smith,  John,  narrative  of  ad 
ventures  of,  105. 

Smith  College,  237. 

South,  the  settlers  of  the,  42-44, 
56-58 ;  fiction  writers  of  the, 
174-176 ;  activities  of  General 
Education  Board  concerning 
the,  263 ;  effect  of  climate  on 
men  and  manners  in  the,  297- 
298. 

Southern  Education  Board,  264- 
265. 

"Spy,  The,"  Cooper's,  145,  146- 
147. 

"Star-Spangled  Banner,  The," 
155,  210-211. 

State  government,  lines  of  demar 
cation  between  national  govern 
ment  and,  75-77,  156. 

State  universities,  247-248,  251- 
253;  pedagogic  training  in, 
258. 

Steamboat,  invention  of  the,  82- 
83. 

Stevens  Institute,  258. 

Story,  William  Wetmore,  208- 
209. 

Stowe,  Harriet  Beecher,  178-179. 

Stuart,  Gilbert,  194,  196. 

Suffrage,  American  belief  in  uni 
versal,  17. 

Supreme  Court,  functions  of  the, 
275 ;  decision  that  America 
is  a  Christian  nation,  320-321. 

Swedish  blood  in  America,  56,  58. 


Taft,  Lorado,  210. 
Taft,  William  H.,  15. 


339 


INDEX 


Tariff,  the  American,  284. 

Teachers,  pensions  for,  by  Car 
negie  Foundation,  264. 

Teachers  College,  Columbia  Uni 
versity,  258. 

Teaching,  training  in  science  of, 
258-259. 

Tennessee  mountaineers  in  fiction, 
176. 

Thackeray,  W.  M.,  on  Irving,  123. 

"Thanatopsis,"  Bryant's,  128, 
145. 

Thoreau,  H.  D.,  "Maine  Woods" 
of,  contrasted  with  White's 
"Natural  History  of  Sel- 
bourne,"  310. 

"To  a  Waterfowl,"  Bryant's,  135 ; 
reason  for  tendency  to  morali- 
zation  in,  301-302. 

"Tom  Sawyer,"  176. 

Trumbull,  American  painter,  196. 

Tuskegee  Institute,  283. 


U 


"Uncle  Remus"  stories,  176. 

"Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  178-179. 

Universities,  American,  219-220, 
245  ff.;  state,  247-248,  251- 
253 ;  educational  influence 
from  Europe  upon  American, 
254-257;  scientific,  257-258; 
close  relation  of  technical  train 
ing  of  all  kinds  with,  259-260. 

University,  significance  of  the 
word,  as  applied  to  American 
educational  institutions,  253- 
254. 


Van  Dyke,  Henry,  185,  186. 
"Vanity   Fair,"   not   a   national 

novel,  173. 
Vassar  College,  237. 


Vedder,  Elihu,  198-199. 
Vespucci,  Amerigo,  41. 
Virginia,  the  settlers  of,  42-44; 

beginnings     of    education    in, 

215-216. 

Virginia,  University  of,  113,  220. 
Virginia    Company,    educational 

plans  of,  215. 
"Virginian,"  Wister's,  181. 

W 

"War  and  Peace,"  as  a  national 
novel,  173. 

War  between  the  States,  mis 
conception  of,  by  foreign  na 
tions,  8;  birth  of  the  Nation 
dating  from,  153,  158. 

Ward,  J.  Q.  A.,  207. 

Washington,  George,  15,  44 ;  the 
guiding  genius  of  America,  70- 
71,  73 ;  election  to  Presidency, 
77 ;  bequest  by,  for  founding  of 
a  national  university,  219-220. 

Wealth,  vastness  of  increase  of, 
in  America,  and  effects,  311- 
314. 

Wellesley  College,  237. 

Wells  College,  237. 

West,  development  of  the,  83  ff. ; 
fiction  dealing  with  the,  176- 
177;  effect  of  climate  on  men 
and  manners  in  the,  298. 

West,  Benjamin,  196,  197. 

Whistler,  J.  NcN.,  200-202. 

White,  William  Allen,  181. 

Whitman,  Walt,  discussion  of 
work  of,  160-164. 

Whitney,  Eli,  83. 

Whittier,  J.  G.,  136. 

William  and  Mary  College,  218. 

Wilson,  Woodrow,  15;  on  keep 
ing  the  doors  of  opportunity 
open  to  Americans,  289. 


340 


INDEX 


Wister,  Owen,  177,  181. 

Women,  college  education  for, 
236-238. 

Woodberry,  G.  E.,  185. 

Woolman,  John,  116-118. 

Wren,  Sir  Christopher,  inspira 
tion  of,  in  American  colonial 
architecture,  189-190. 

Wyant,  Alexander  H.,  198,  199. 


Yale  College,  founding  of,  218; 
spirit  actuating  athletics  at, 
241 ;  significance  of  word 
"university"  as  applied  to, 
253. 

Yorktown,  epoch-making  sur 
render  of  British  at,  68. 


341 


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